our box
and dried the clothes in it, which were wet through from the overlading
of the life-boat. About midday two Englishmen arrived from the Quop
River, nearer to Kuching, where they had been with the Rajah. They only
stayed a short time, but told us that the Kunsi Chinese had really gone
to Bau, and that the Bishop was with the Rajah at Quop. Late at night I
had a note from my husband, saying he thought we might return to
Sarawak, for all was quiet, and he hoped the Rajah would come back early
on Sunday morning. The next morning, therefore, we prepared to set off
again in the life-boat, but first I went to pay a visit to Inchi Bouyang
the Malay writer, who lived in one of the houses near, and who was too
stout to venture out of his own house into a less strongly built one.
This seems absurd enough, but the Malay houses were certainly very
slight; they seemed to sway in the mud of the creek, and the floors of
the rooms were made of very open strips of nibong palm, so that you had
to walk turning your feet well out in order not to slip through the
lantiles. I found many Malays gathered in the writer's house, all to
entreat me not to go to Kuching, because it was "not a lucky day." "If
the Malays fight the Chinese to-day," they said, "they will be beaten."
"What reason have you for saying so?" "No reason exactly, but the day is
unlucky; it is like Friday to the English, they never go to sea on that
day." "Oh," said I, "that was long ago: they often go to sea on Friday
now they know better, and no sensible person thinks anything of lucky or
unlucky days." "Well, we have told you what we think. If you must go,
some of us will go with you, and we shall tell the Tuan Padre it was not
our fault that you would not wait until to-morrow." So Lulut, a servant
of the Rajah's, and another Malay got into the boat with us, and we set
off up the river.

CHAPTER XII.

CHINESE INSURRECTION (_Continued_).

As we proceeded up the river we agreed we would ask news of any boat we
met. Presently we noticed smoke rising above the trees. "The Malays are
burning the Chinese town," said the men; but as we drew nearer it was
evidently the Malay town which was burning. At last we met a boat. "Yes;
the Chinese had returned, and had set fire to the Malay town; they were
also firing at the Sarawak Chinese in the bazaar." On Saturday the
Bishop and the Channons and Stahl had unspiked two of the guns left in
the fort, and had hoisted the Sa