Decatur, unable to speak, looked at Somers with a sort of passion of brotherly love shining out of his eyes. He felt, as sure as that he was then living, that he would never see his friend again.
The boat being ready, Moriarity and his three companions were called forward. As they advanced, Somers smiling, said to them:
“There is bound to be some disappointment among you. Each one of you has come privately to ask that he may be the one to apply the match; but that honor, my fine fellows, I have reserved for myself.”
Somers and Decatur then went down the ladder, followed by the four seamen; and at the same moment, as if by magic, the yards of the Nautilus were manned and three cheers rang over the quiet water.
The boat pulled first to the Constitution, where the second boat was waiting. Commodore Preble was standing on the quarter-deck. Somers, with an air of unwonted gayety, came over the side. Going up to the commodore, he said pleasantly, “Well, commodore, I have come for my last instructions.”
Commodore Preble could only clasp his young captain’s hand and say:
“I have given all that I have to give. I know your prudence and your resolute courage. You are in the hands of the great and good God, and no matter what the result of this night’s work may be, your country will never forget you.”
As Somers, still wearing his pleasant smile, left the Constitution, the men also manned the yards and cheered him. With Decatur he went on board the fire-ship, to take one last look, and to wait for complete darkness, which was now approaching. On the ketch were Captain Stewart and Lieutenant Wadsworth, first, of the Nautilus, and these four spent this last hour together. Wadsworth, a man of vigor and determination, like Somers, was perfectly easy and cheerful. Stewart and Decatur, who were to follow the ketch as far in the offing as was prudent, were both strangely silent. Decatur had a terrible foreboding that he and Somers would never meet again in this world.
Meanwhile the Constitution’s cutter had been lowered, and with the Nautilus’s boat had been made fast to the frigate’s side, directly under a port in the steward’s pantry. Somers having determined to wait another half hour for the blue fog which was steadily rising on the water to conceal him entirely, the men had been permitted to leave the boat. Danny Dixon, taking advantage of this, was in the Constitution’s cutter, making a last examination, for his own satisfaction, of the oars, rowlocks, etc., when above the lapping of the water against the great ship’s side, he heard a whisper overhead of—
“Dixon! I say, Dixon!”