“Let no one mourn for me if it should be my fate to die bravely, like your brother. Rather let those who love me rejoice that so noble an exit was permitted me.”
Only a breathing-spell of a few days was allowed the squadron, but in that time the tone of the Bashaw changed wonderfully. He wanted the Americans to send in a flag of truce; but this Commodore Preble refused, with the menace that, if a hair of the heads of the imprisoned Americans should be injured, the Bashaw should be made to pay such a price for it as he would remember the longest day of his life.
On the 7th of August, repairs having been completed and the captured Tripolitan boats refitted, another attack was made, about two o’clock in the afternoon. The gunboats, of which there were now nine, were again in two divisions, commanded by Somers and Decatur. Covered by the guns of the brigs and schooners, they dashed boldly in. Immediately a terrific cannonade was opened on them from the forts, the castle, and the Tripolitan fleet of gun-vessels that were ranged directly across the harbor. The Americans, however, returned it warmly, and over five hundred solid shot and fifty shells were fired at the forts. The batteries were very nearly silenced, the gunners driven away from their guns, and the masonry almost demolished.
The Tripolitan gunboats no longer gave the Americans a chance to board them, but remained at a prudent distance within the reefs, preferring to fight at long range. While the divisions were advancing, Somers, who was leaning against the flagstaff of his boat, turned around as Moriarity, the coxswain, uttered an exclamation. The second boat in Decatur’s division had been struck by a Tripolitan shell. It exploded, and for a moment or two the unfortunate vessel and her brave crew were lost in a cloud of smoke and the water thrown up around it. When the boat became again visible the after part was already shattered and under water. Upon the forward part, which still floated, were a young midshipman and eleven men. They had been engaged in reloading the long twenty-four-pounder she carried, and at this terrible moment the gun captain, under the midshipman’s orders, was coolly applying the match.
“That’s Mr. Spence, sorr,” said Moriarity, pointing to the little midshipman.
The gun roared out, and the shot struck the muzzle of a gun in the battery of Fort English, breaking it into a hundred pieces. The bow of the boat was beginning to sink, but, before thinking of saving themselves, the men, led by the midshipman, gave three hearty American cheers. Then Decatur’s boat approaching, they leaped into the water, and were hauled on board.
“Hurrah!” shouted Somers, standing up and waving his cap at Decatur, who was doing the same thing at him.
Hardly were the words out of his mouth, when he suddenly felt himself seized around the waist by Moriarity’s strong arms and thrown down on the deck. The next moment a shot struck the flagstaff against which Somers had been leaning and cut it off short at the very spot where but a moment before his head had been.
“Beg your parding, sorr,” said Moriarity, as the two scrambled to their feet, “but I seen her comin’, and ’twarn’t no time for to be axin’ what the regulations is ’bout gittin’ a orficer’s head out o’ the way when a shot is a-comin’ straight for it, sorr.”
“No apologies are necessary,” cried Somers, shaking Moriarity’s hand, “for saving a man’s life as you did mine.”