“The ketch ‘Stella,’ from Malta. We lost our anchors and cables in the
gale, and would like to lie by during the night.”
The Tripolitan took another puff, and an ominous stir, quickly silenced,
was heard down in the hold of the ketch. It seemed an eternity before the
answer came,--
“Your request is unusual, but I will grant it,” said the Tripolitan, at
last. “What ship is that in the offing?”
The officer had seen the “Siren,” which hovered outside the entrance of
the harbor.
“The British ship ‘Transfer,’” said Catalano, promptly.
The ketch was slowly drifting down until a grappling-iron could almost
be thrown aboard. Right under the broadside she went, and a line of dark
heads peered over the rail at her as she gradually approached the bow.
The chains of the frigate were now almost in the grasp of Reuben James,
on the forecastle, when the wind failed and a cat’s-paw caught the ketch
aback. Down she drifted towards the terrible broadside. But at a sign
from Decatur the eager Lawrence and James got into a small boat and
carried a line to a ring-bolt at the frigate’s bow. A boat put out from
the “Philadelphia” at the same time. But Lawrence coolly took the hawser
from the Tripolitan--“to save the gentleman trouble,” he explained--and
brought it aboard the “Intrepid.” A moment more, and the ketch was warping
down under the “Philadelphia’s” quarter. It was a moment of dire peril.
The slightest suspicion, and they would be blown to pieces.
Decatur leaned lightly against the rail, but his hand grasped his cutlass
under his robe so that the blood tingled in his nails and his muscles were
drawn and tense. Morris and Joseph Bainbridge stood at the rigging beside
him, trembling like greyhounds in leash.
Suddenly they swung around and shot out from under the shadow into a
yellow patch of moonlight. The watchful eyes above the rail saw the anchor
and cables and the white jackets of the sailors below decks as they strove
to hide themselves in the shadows. One glance was enough. In an instant
the ship resounded with the thrilling cry, “Americano! Americano!”
At the same moment the “Intrepid” ground up against the side of the
frigate. In an instant, as if by magic, she was alive with men. Throwing
off his disguise, and with a loud cry of “Boarders, away!” Decatur sprang
for the mizzen-chains. And now the hot blood of fighting leaped to their
brains. The long agony of suspense was over. Lawrence and Laws sprang for
the chain-plates and hauled themselves up. Decatur’s foot slipped, and
Morris was the first on deck. Laws dashed at a port, pistols in hand.
Nothing could withstand the fury of the charge, and over the rail they
swarmed, cutlasses in teeth, jumping over the nettings, and down on the
heads of the Tripolitans below. Though Morris was first on deck, Decatur
lunged in ahead of him, bringing down the Tripolitan officer before he
could draw his sword. One of them aimed a pike at him, but he parried it
deftly, and Morris cut the fellow down with a blow that laid his shoulder
open from collar to elbow.
Though surprised, the Tripolitans fought fiercely. They had won their
title of “the best hand-to-hand fighters in the world” in many a hard
pirate battle in the Mediterranean. Around the masts they rallied,
scimetars in hand, until they were cut or borne down by the fury of their
opponents.
[Illustration: DECATUR BOARDS THE “PHILADELPHIA”]
After the first order, not a word was spoken and not a shot was
fired. The Americans needed no orders. Over the quarter-deck they
swept--irresistible, clearing it in a trice. Overwhelmed by the fierce
onslaught, the Tripolitans fled for life, the sailors driving them up on
the forecastle and overboard in a mass, where their falling bodies sounded
like the splash of a ricochet.
So swift was the work that in ten minutes no Tripolitans were left on the
deck of the frigate but the dead. Not a sailor had been killed. One man
had been slashed across the forehead, but he grinned through the blood
and fought the more fiercely. Then the watchers out on the “Siren” saw
a single rocket go high in the air, which was Decatur’s signal that the
“Philadelphia” was again an American vessel.
In the meanwhile the combustibles were handed up from the ketch with
incredible swiftness, and the work of destruction began. Midshipman Morris
and his crew had fought their way below to the cock-pit and had set a fire
there. But so swiftly did those above accomplish their work that he and
his men barely had time to escape. On reaching the upper deck, Decatur
found the flames pouring from the port-holes on both sides and flaring
up red and hungry to seize the tar-soaked shrouds. He gave the order to
abandon, and over the sides they tumbled as quickly as they had come.
Decatur was the last to leave the deck. All the men were over, and the
ketch was drifting clear, while around him the flames were pouring, their
hot breath overpowering him. But he made a jump for it and landed safely,
amid the cheers of his men.
Then the great oars were got out, eight on a side, and pulling them as
only American sailor-men could or can, they swept out towards the “Siren.”
The Tripolitans ashore and on the gunboats had hastened to their guns,
and now, as the ketch was plainly seen, their batteries belched forth a
terrific storm of shot that flew across the water. The men bent their
backs splendidly to their work, jeering the while at the enemy as the
balls whistled by their heads or sent the foam splashing over them. Out
they went across the great crimson glare of the fire. It was magnificent.
The flames swept up the shrouds with a roar, catching the woodwork of
the tops and eating them as though they were tinder. She was ablaze from
water to truck, and all the heavens were alight,--aglow at the splendid
sacrifice. Then to the added roar of the batteries ashore came the
response from the guns of the flaming ship, which, heated by the fierce
flames, began to discharge themselves. But not all of them were fired so,
for in a second all eyes were dazzled by a blazing light, and they saw the
great hull suddenly burst open, with huge streaks of flame spurting from
between the parting timbers. Then came a roar that made the earth and sea
shudder. The fire had reached the magazine.
[Illustration: THE DANGER OF THE “INTREPID”]
The waves of it came out to the gallant crew, who, pausing in their work,
gave one last proof of their contempt of danger. Rising to their feet,
they gave three great American cheers that echoed back to the forts while
their guns thundered fruitlessly on.
Decatur and his men were safe under the “Siren’s” guns.
Is it any wonder that Congress gave Decatur a sword and made him a
captain, or that Lord Nelson called this feat “the most daring act of any
age”?