Decatur told him briefly what had occurred. When he finished, Captain Bainbridge, who was a tall, powerful man, gave him a thwack upon the shoulder that nearly knocked him down.
“Good for you!” he cried. “You boy officers have as much sense as we oldsters. I would not take a year’s pay for what has happened this night!”
Captain Bainbridge, though, had reason to be still more proud of his boy officers in what followed concerning Moriarity. The Thunderer’s people were determined to get Moriarity back, and watched their chance for days. They knew it was impossible to get him off the Essex, and their opportunity was when the man went ashore on liberty. About two weeks after this, one bright August day, Captain Bainbridge having gone ashore on official business and Decatur being again in command, he noticed a great commotion in a British boat that was pulling off toward the Thunderer. A man was struggling in the bottom of the boat, and his loud cries and fierce efforts to free himself and jump overboard were clearly heard on the Essex. Decatur, whose eyesight was wonderfully keen, called to Macdonough, who was near him:
“Is not that voice Moriarity’s?”
“Yes,” cried Macdonough, “and he was given liberty this morning, I happen to know.”
It took Decatur but a moment to act. “Lower the second cutter!” he cried—the fastest of all the boats; “and you, Macdonough, if possible—if possible, do you hear?—reach that boat before it touches the ship, and bring me that man!”
Scarcely were the words out of Decatur’s mouth before the boat began to descend from the davits, and the boat’s crew, with Danny Dixon as coxswain, dropped in her as she touched the water. Macdonough, his dark eyes blazing, and almost wild with excitement under his calm exterior, was the first man in the boat.
“Give way, men!” he said, in a voice of suppressed agitation. “We must get that man, or never hold up our heads as long as we are at Gibraltar.”
The men gave way with a will and a cheer, and Macdonough, in the stern sheets, steered straight for the Thunderer’s boat. The British tars, realizing what was up, bent to their oars and dashed the diamond spray in showers around them. Both were about evenly matched, and the question was whether the Americans could reach the British boat before she got under the lee of the ship—and then, whether Moriarity could be recaptured. The American sailors, their oars flashing with the steadiness and precision of a machine, were gaining a little on the British boat; but it was plain, if they could intercept it at all, it would be directly under the quarter of the great line-of-battle ship. Several officers were in the Thunderer’s boat, and Macdonough recognized among them Lockyer, the insolent lieutenant. Moriarity, completely overpowered, lay handcuffed in the bows of the boat.
Decatur, on the deck of the Essex, watched the two cutters speeding across the dazzling blue of the harbor with an intensity as if his life depended on it. He had instantly chosen Macdonough to represent the Essex, and said to himself, involuntarily: “If any one can do it, it is Macdonough. He is like Somers, quiet and determined. He can’t—he sha’n’t fail!”