But it was some relief to know the worst, and to know that it was known that we knew it. Before this we had been obliged to feign hopes that we hardly believed ourselves. Now we could speak openly. The Prince had not yet returned from his fishing trip; so we went to his elder daughter and her husband, afterward Prince Intanon. In their position they could not say much; but they did say that what the Prince had done was not right, and that they did not approve of the act. One outcome of the situation was a flood of the wildest rumours—some of them, no doubt, started on purpose to frighten us away. One of these touched us in a most tender point. One of our most faithful servants, who had been with us from the very first, was desirous of visiting Bangkok. So we arranged to have him go down in charge of a boat that was to bring up our supplies for the year. By him we sent a large package of letters written before we had reason to suspect so serious an outcome of the troubles that were brewing. While we could not conceal some gloomy forebodings, our reports were, on the whole, full of hope for the speedy progress of the Gospel. The boat left for Bangkok a few days after the Prince started on his fishing trip. Presently it was reported that the boat had been intercepted, and that this man, with his wife, his son, and his son’s family, even down to a little grandchild of two years old, had been killed, and the boat broken to pieces and burned. Although such atrocity seemed beyond belief, yet a number of circumstances combined to give the report credibility. Why, for instance, was the long, unusual trip down the river taken just before our boat was to start? What did it mean that, after the murder of the Christians was known, no sum of money could induce a Lāo man to take a letter to Bangkok? If the story of the fate of our messenger were true, the act was the act of a madman—and there is no telling what a madman may not do. He was in a position to keep us from escaping; and if he had really gone so far as that, he evidently did not intend that we should be heard from alive. For a time we virtually resigned ourselves to what seemed inevitable fate. When we could get no letters sent, we actually began writing the history of those days on the margins of books in our library, so that, if we were never heard from again, some of the precedent circumstances of our end might thus, perhaps, come to light. It was a great relief, therefore, when an influential Burmese, knowing our situation, offered to carry a letter through to our friends in Bangkok.