“Perfectly willing, sir. It is no greater responsibility than my friend Captain Decatur assumed when in that very ketch he risked the lives of himself and sixty-two companions in the destruction of the Philadelphia.”
“Old Pepper,” leaning across the table, suddenly grasped a hand each of his two young captains.
“My boys,” he said with shining eyes, “the first day you sat with me at this table the sight of your youth, and the knowledge of the duties you had to perform, gave me one of the most terrible fits of depression I ever suffered. I deeply regretted that I had assumed charge of such an expedition with what I bitterly called then a parcel of schoolboy captains. Now I can only say that you have all turned out the best boys I ever saw—for I can not yet call you men.”
This outburst, so unlike Commodore Preble’s usual stern and somewhat morose manner, touched both Decatur and Somers; and Decatur said, laughing, but with moisture in his eyes:
“You see, commodore, it is because we have had such a good schoolmaster in the art of war.”
The conversation that followed was long and animated, and when Decatur and Somers left the ship and were rowed across the dark water the commodore’s permission had been given. On the Enterprise, the very next morning, the squadron being well out of sight of the town and at anchor, the preparation of the ketch began.
The day was a bright and beautiful one, although in September, which is a stormy month in the Mediterranean. The ketch was laid alongside of “Old Ironsides,” and the transfer of the powder and shells was begun at sunrise; for it was characteristic of Somers to do quickly whatever he had to do, and time was of great consequence to him then. The men worked with a will, knowing well enough that some daring expedition was on hand. Wadsworth, Somers’s first lieutenant, with the assistance of Decatur, directed the preparation of the fire-ship; while Somers, in the cabin of the Nautilus, arranged his private affairs and wrote his will, remembering well that he might never return from that night’s awful adventure. He wrote several letters and sealed them, and then the last one, inclosing his will, was to Decatur. The other letters were long, but that to Decatur was brief. It only said:
“Herein is my will, which I charge you to see executed if I should never come back. For yourself, dear Decatur, I have no words that I can say. To other men I may express my affection, and ask their forgiveness for any injury I may have done them; but between you and me there is nothing to forgive—only the remembrance of our brotherhood, ever since we were young and innocent boys. If I were to think long on this it would make me too tender-hearted, and when this thought comes to me, I can only say, Good-by and God bless you!
“Richard Somers.”
The golden noon had come, and as Somers glanced through the cabin windows of the smart little Nautilus he could see the preparations going on aboard the ketch. Anchored directly under the quarter of the splendid frigate, men were busy passing the powder and arranging the shells, doing it all with the cool caution of those accustomed to desperate risks. Decatur’s tall figure was seen on the Constitution’s deck. He paced up and down with the commodore, and was really unable to tear himself away from the ship. Tears came into Somers’s eyes as he watched Decatur. Somers had no brother, no father, and no mother, and Decatur had been more to him all his life than he could express.
Meanwhile it was well understood on the other ships that, except the first lieutenant of the Nautilus, Mr. Wadsworth, who was to command the second boat, no other officer would be permitted to go. Although any and all of them would have been rejoiced to share in the dangers of this expedition, they knew it would be useless to ask—that is, all except Pickle Israel, who marched boldly up to the commodore, as he was pacing the deck, and, touching his cap, suddenly plumped out with—