The submarine steamed up to them. “What vessel is that?” her commander shouted from the conning tower in excellent English.
“The American steamer Soak-it-to-'em, of Rotten Row,” Cappy Ricks replied, “carrying a cargo of post holes. She has three decks and no bottom.”
“How do you spell the name?” the German bawled.
“Can't hear you,” Cappy fibbed. Then, sotto voce, to Mr. Reardon: “Kick her ahead, Terry.”
“How do you spell the name?” the submarine captain repeated.
Cappy jibbered something unintelligible, and Mr. Reardon added to the puzzle by bellowing the information that the p was silent, as in pneumonia. All this time the motor boat was putting distance between itself and the submarine, and the disgusted German, as a last resort, steamed away and circled round the rapidly lifting stern of the doomed Costa Rica, confident that there he would find the record of her identity and home port—information which, in his methodical German way, he desired to include in his official report to the Admiralty. And while he ratched slowly past, striving to find with his binoculars that which was not, Michael J. Murphy and his bully boys came aft with a rush, tore aside the tarpaulin that screened the stern gun and expeditiously opened fire. To Cappy Ricks' horror Murphy's first shot was a clean miss, and instantly the big sub started to submerge with a hoarse sucking sound that brought despair to Cappy Ricks' heart. She was halfway under before Murphy's gun was reloaded, but quite calmly the gun was traversed and deflected until the black stern flashed across the intersection of the wires in the sight; then Murphy's hand dropped and the gun roared.
“That'll do nicely, lads,” he told his crew. “Tore the stern off her that time; and from this dive she'll not come up. Cappy Ricks was right. He banked on human nature, and if curiosity isn't a human trait then I'm a Chinaman. Overboard with you, and away before the old girl goes under or we'll be sucked down in the vortex.”
And overboard they went, to be picked up five minutes later by Terence and Cappy in the motor lifeboat. “You were right, Mr. Ricks,” cried Murphy as he scrambled into the boat. “Curiosity killed the cat!”
“Yes, and it's blamed near killed me,” Cappy declared feebly. “Some of that debris came down and hit me a slap on the dome—Jerusalem! There goes my decoy—peace to her bones!”
The Costa Rica dove to the Port of Missing Ships. Michael J. Murphy, however, did not turn to see her disappear; he was gazing, instead, at a thin red trickle that came from under Cappy's cap band and was running down his wizened neck. “Mr. Ricks,” he said anxiously, “you're wounded.”