of the
ship. Then the order was given to return to the ketch, the cable was
cut, the sweeps got out, and the ketch drew rapidly away from the
burning vessel. The sounds of the melee had awakened the troops on
shore, and, as the harbor was lighted by the flames from the
Philadelphia, the shore batteries opened upon the little vessel, but
without doing her any serious damage, and Decatur got safely out of the
harbor and back to the fleet without losing a man.

Shortly afterwards his life was saved by one of those acts of heroism
which stir the blood. In a general attack upon the Tripolitan gunboats,
Decatur laid his ship alongside one of the enemy, grappled with her and
boarded. Decatur was the first over the side and a desperate
hand-to-hand combat followed. The pirate captain, a gigantic fellow,
soon met Decatur face to face, and stood on tiptoe to deal him a
tremendous blow with his scimitar. Decatur rushed in under the swinging
sword, grappled with him, and they fell to the deck together, when
another Tripolitan raised his scimitar to deal the American a fatal
blow. A young sailor named Reuben James, himself with both arms disabled
from sword cuts, seeing his beloved captain's peril, interposed his own
head beneath the descending sword and received a wound which marked him
for life. An instant later, Decatur's crew rallied to him, killed the
pirate captain and drove the remainder of his crew over the side into
the sea.

At the outbreak of the war of 1812, Decatur was given command of the
United States, and on the morning of October 25, overhauled the British
frigate Macedonian near the Canary Islands. Seventeen minutes later, the
Macedonian, with a third of her crew dead, hauled down her colors.
Decatur had lost only twelve men killed and wounded, and placing a crew
aboard his prize, got her safely to New York. This victory was soon
followed by disaster, for, securing command of the President, a frigate
mounting forty-four guns, he attempted to get past the British blockade
of New York harbor, but ran into a squadron of the enemy, and, after a
running fight lasting thirty hours, was overhauled by a superior force
and compelled to surrender. Decatur was taken captive to Bermuda, but
was soon parolled, and, after commanding a squadron in the
Mediterranean, built himself a house at Washington, expecting to spend
the remainder of his days there in honorable retirement.

But it was not to be. In 1816, Decatur, while a