“They're dragging a collapsible boat up from below,” Mike Murphy declared. “That means they're going to board us, place bombs in the bilges, and sink us that way. They know blamed well we've wirelessed for help and a patrol has answered; so that—”
“No profanity!” Cappy shrilled.
“So he has decided he won't try to sink us by shell fire with such a small gun. It'll be dark in five minutes and he's afraid the flame of the discharge or the reports of the gun may guide the patrol boat here before he's finished his job. Oh, wirra, wirra!”
Murphy's surmise proved to be correct, for he had scarcely finished speaking before the submarine commander hailed him and ordered him to let down his gangway. Terence P. Reardon's eyes flamed with the lust for battle.
“Be the great gun av Athlone,” he cried, “if they're comin' aboard sure we can get at them!”
Murphy's rage vanished as suddenly as it had gripped him; he smiled at Terence affectionately, approvingly.
“You with your monkey wrench, eh, Terry, my lad? And they with automatic pistols and wishful of an excuse to use them, not to mention the nitroglycerin and guncotton bombs they'll be carrying—a divilish bad thing to have kicking round in a free-for-all fight?” he queried.
Terry's face showed his deep disappointment.
“They'll see us all in the boats,” Murphy continued; “then they'll go below, set the bombs, light a slow fuse to give them time to get back to the submarine—and then—”
“With all these poor dumb beasts aboard?” Cappy Ricks quavered. “Horrible! Horrible! I could kill them for it.”