cross the quiet bay. The pilot replied
that he had lost his anchors and asked permission to make fast to the
frigate for the night. The Tripolitan lookout grumbled assent. Ropes
were then thrown out and the vessels were drawing together, when the cry
"Americanas!" went up from the deck of the frigate. In a trice Decatur
and his men had scrambled aboard and overpowered the crew.

It was a crucial moment. If Decatur's instructions had not been
imperative, he would have thrown prudence to the winds and have tried to
cut out the frigate and make off in her. There were those, indeed, who
believed that he might have succeeded. But the Commodore's orders were
to destroy the frigate. There was no alternative. Combustibles were
brought on board, the match applied, and in a few moments the frigate
was ablaze. Decatur and his men had barely time to regain the Intrepid
and to cut her fasts. The whole affair had not taken more than twenty
minutes, and no one was killed or even seriously wounded.

Pulling lustily at their sweeps, the crew of the Intrepid moved her
slowly out of the harbor, in the light of the burning vessel. The guns
of the fort were manned at last and were raining shot and shell wildly
over the harbor. The jack-tars on the Intrepid seemed oblivious to
danger, "commenting upon the beauty of the spray thrown up by the shot
between us and the brilliant light of the ship, rather than calculating
any danger," wrote Midshipman Morris. Then the starboard guns of the
Philadelphia, as though instinct with purpose, began to send hot shot
into the town. The crew yelled with delight and gave three cheers for
the redoubtable old frigate. It was her last action, God bless her! Her
cables soon burned, however, and she drifted ashore, there to blow up in
one last supreme effort to avenge herself. At the entrance of the harbor
the Intrepid found the boats of the Siren, and three days later both
rejoined the squadron.

Thrilling as Decatur's feat was, it brought peace no nearer. The Pasha,
infuriated by the loss of the Philadelphia, was more exorbitant
than ever in his demands. There was nothing for it but to scour the
Mediterranean for Tripolitan ships, maintain the blockade so far as
weather permitted, and await the opportunity to reduce the city of
Tripoli by bombardment. But Tripoli was a hard nut to crack. On the
ocean side it was protected by forts and batteries and the harbor was
guarded by a long line of reefs. Through the