Decatur was tall, and as active as a cat. His muscles were like steel, and his rage seemed to give him the strength of a dozen. But the Mussulman was a giant, the biggest man in the Tripolitan fleet, and a very demon in power and viciousness. So strong was he, that as Decatur lunged at him with his boarding-pike he succeeded in wrenching it from the hand of the American, and so wonderfully quick that Decatur had hardly time to raise his cutlass to parry the return. He barely caught it; but in doing so his weapon broke off short at the hilt. The next lunge he partially warded by stepping to one side; but the pike of the Mussulman in passing cut an ugly wound in his arm and chest. Entirely defenceless, he now knew that his only chance was at close quarters, so he sprang in below the guard of the Turk and seized him around the waist, hoping to trip and stun him. But the Tripolitan tore the arms away as though he had been a stripling, and, seizing him by the throat, bore him by sheer weight to the deck, trying the while to draw a yataghan. The American crew, seeing things going badly with their young captain, fought in furiously, and in a moment the mass of Americans and Tripolitans were fighting in one desperate, struggling, smothering heap, above the prostrate bodies of their captains, neither of whom could succeed in drawing a weapon. The Turk was the first to get his dagger loose, but the American’s death-like grasp held his wrist like a vise, and kept him from striking the blow. Decatur saw another Turk just beside him raise his yataghan high above his head, and he felt that he was lost. But at this moment a sailor, named Reuben James, who loved Decatur as though he were a brother, closed in quickly and caught on his own head the blow intended for Decatur. Both his arms had been disabled, but he asked nothing better than to lay down his life for his captain. In the meanwhile, without relinquishing his grip upon the Turk, Decatur succeeded in drawing a pistol from the breast of his shirt, and, pressing the muzzle near the heart of the Tripolitan, fired. As the muscles of his adversary relaxed, the American managed to get upon one knee, and so to his feet, stunned and bleeding, but still unsubdued. The Tripolitans, disheartened by the loss of their leader, broke ground before the force of the next attack and fled overboard or were cut down where they stood. The death of James Decatur was avenged.