“The Transfer,” answered Catalano, prompted by Decatur.
This was a small frigate lately purchased of the British at Malta, and which the Tripolitans were anxiously looking for.
“Good!” said the officer.
“The wind died out before she could get in,” continued Catalano, “and she asked us to report her.”
Not the slightest suspicion had yet entered the minds of the Tripolitans that the Intrepid was anything but a trading vessel, and luckily enough for Decatur and his dauntless company; for at that moment a puff of wind came, the Intrepid’s head fell off, and she drifted directly under the Philadelphia’s broadside.
At this appalling moment the least hint of the Intrepid’s real character would have meant death to every man on board. Decatur, with his unshakable coolness, ordered a boat out, with Lawrence and three seamen, carrying a hawser, which they quietly fastened to the forechains of the Philadelphia. The ketch meanwhile was drifting under the port batteries of the frigate, toward the stern, where, if she had escaped the guns on broadside, the stern chasers could have annihilated her. But every man on board shared Decatur’s calm self-possession at this critical moment.
The frigate’s boat containing the fast had now put out. Lawrence, rowing back to the ketch, met the Tripolitan boat.
“Give us your fast,” he said, “so we can let go another hawser. We lost our best cables with the anchors, and our hawsers are so small that it will take two to hold us in case the wind should rise during the night.”
The Tripolitans handed out the fasts, which Lawrence coolly carried on board the Intrepid. The men on deck, catching hold of the fast, then drew the ketch close to the frigate’s huge black hull, and were soon breasting along under her port side.
The shadow cast by the Philadelphia’s hull was of immense help to the Intrepid’s men, but near her stern was a great patch of white moonlight, and any object passing through this glittering and shimmering belt could be seen as plainly as in daytime. As the ketch glided steadily along and into this brilliant light, her anchors, with their cables coiled up, were seen on her decks.