When all were safely assembled on the deck of the Intrepid, (for so admirably had the service been executed that not a man was missing, and only one slightly wounded,) Decatur gave the order to cut the fasts and shove off.  The necessity for prompt obedience and exertion was urgent.  The flames had now gained the lower rigging, and ascended to the tops; they darted furiously from the ports, flashing from the quarter gallery round the mizzen of the Intrepid, as her stern dropped clear of the ship.  To estimate the perils of their position, it should be borne in mind, that the fire had been communicated by these fearless men to the near neighborhood of both magazines of the Philadelphia.  The Intrepid herself was a fire ship, having been supplied with combustibles, a mass of which, ready to be converted into the means of destroying other vessels of the enemy, if the opportunity should offer, lay in barrels on her quarter deck, covered only with a tarpaulin.

With destruction thus encompassing them within and without, Decatur and his brave followers were unmoved.  Calmly they put forth the necessary exertion, breasted the Intrepid off with spars, and pressing on their sweeps, caused her slowly to withdraw from the vicinity of the burning mass.  A gentle breeze from the land came auspiciously at the same moment, and wafted the Intrepid beyond the reach of the flames, bearing with it, however, a shower of burning embers, fraught with danger to a vessel laden with combustibles, had not discipline, order, and calm self-possession, been at hand for her protection.  Soon this peril was also left behind, and Decatur and his followers were at a sufficient distance to contemplate securely the spectacle which the Philadelphia presented.  Hull, spars, and rigging, were now enveloped in flames.  As the metal of her guns became heated, they were discharged in succession from both sides, serving as a brilliant salvo in honor of the victor, and not harmless for the Tripolitans, as her starboard battery was fired directly into the town.

The town itself, the castles, the minarets of the mosques, and the shipping in the harbor, were all brought into distinct view by the splendor of the conflagration.  It served also to reveal to the enemy the cause of their disaster, in the little Intrepid, as she slowly withdrew from the harbor.  The shot of the shipping and castles fell thickly around her, throwing up columns of spray, which the brilliant light converted into a new ornament of the scene.  Only one shot took effect, and that passed through her top-gallant sail.  Three hearty American cheers were now given in mingled triumph and derision.  Soon after, the boats of the Siren joined company, and assisted in towing the Intrepid out of the harbor.  The cables of the Philadelphia having burned off, she drifted on the rocks near the westward entrance of the harbor; and then the whole spectacle, so full of moral sublimity, considering the means by which it had been effected, and of material grandeur, had its appropriate termination in the final catastrophe of her explosion.