Twelve Naval Captains / Being a Record of Certain Americans Who Made Themselves Immortal

by Molly Elliot Seawell

The ketch sailed leisurely in, having the appearance of a merchant ship from a Mediterranean port, after a considerable voyage.

The crew had been sent below, and only a few officers, disguised as Maltese sailors, stood or sat about the deck. Before them lay the Bashaw's castle, with its menacing battlements, and all around the harbor was a chain of forts that could make a circle of fire for an invader. Directly under the guns of the castle loomed the tall black hull of the Philadelphia, flying the piratical flag of Tripoli, while moored near her were three smaller cruisers and nineteen gunboats.

The moon had risen, and by its clear illumination the "infernal" steered straight across the blue waters of the harbor for the Philadelphia. When about two hundred yards off, Salvatore Catalano, the pilot, hailed the Tripolitan officer of the deck on the Philadelphia, who lounged over the rail smoking a long pipe.

"This is the ketch Stella, from Malta," he said in the lingua franca of the East. "We lost our anchors and cables in the gale, and would like to lie by you during the night."

"Your request is unusual, but we will grant it," answered the Tripolitan officer.

The officer then asked what vessel it was that was lying in the offing. The pilot, with much readiness, replied that it was the Transfer, a cruiser lately bought from the British by the Tripolitan government, and which was daily expected. This answer seemed to satisfy the Tripolitan, and a boat then put off from the Philadelphia with a fast, and at the same moment a boat also put off, under the command of Lawrence, from the Intrepid. On meeting, Lawrence coolly took the fast from the Tripolitan boat, and soon had the hawser aboard of the ketch. A moment more and the supposed Maltese sailors, in their jackets and red fezzes, roused on the hawser and breasted the ketch along under the Philadelphia's quarter. Had the slightest suspicion been aroused then, they would have been blown out of the water by a single broadside. But the Americans retained their coolness in their desperate situation.

Presently the Intrepid drew out from the black shadow of the frigate's hull into a great patch of white moonlight. The Tripolitans saw the anchors on the deck, with the cables coiled around them. Instantly a cry rang through the ship, "Americanos! Americanos!"

At the same moment the Intrepid came grinding up against the frigate's stern quarter, and, as if by magic, was alive with men. Decatur shouted, "Board!" and the Americans dashed at the frigate's deck.