The Sultan Muda Hasim, though wounded, managed to escape from his burning house to the opposite side of the river with several of his brothers, his wife and children, but he was pursued and surrounded by numbers. Most of his brothers had been killed, and others wounded, and no hope remained to him but to throw himself on the mercy of his nephew, the Sultan. He sent messages to him to beg that his life might be spared, but this was peremptorily refused. Death being inevitable, he retreated to a boat that chanced to be moored to the bank, and placing a cask of gunpowder in the cabin called upon his three brothers and his sons who were with him to enter, and immediately firing the train, the whole party was blown up. Hasim, however, was not killed by the explosion, but, determined not to be taken alive, he put a pistol to his head and blew out his brains. Of the many uncles of the Sultan but four escaped, and many of their relations, as well as other chiefs, were sacrificed. Hasim's full brother, Muhammad, was desperately wounded, and so cowed as to have his spirit broken. He was spared as being harmless. Another brother went permanently mad with terror. Thus the royal family had been nearly exterminated, and the omen of the death of Rajah Api fulfilled. Japar escaped on board H.M.S. _Hazard_, which had arrived and anchored below Bruni some three months after the tragedy, and was taken in her to Kuching. He was instrumental in saving the life of Commander Egerton by warning him not to land, as a plot had been formed to take his life. When news of this crime, which took place at the end of December or the beginning of January, 1846, reached the Rajah he was deeply moved. Of Bedrudin, whose loss he considered irreparable, he wrote:— A nobler, a braver, a more upright prince could not exist. I have lost a friend—he is gone and I remain; I trust, but in vain, to be an instrument to bring punishment on the perpetrators of the atrocious deed.... My suzerain the Sultan!—the villain Sultan!—need expect no mercy from me, but justice he shall have. I no longer own his authority, or hold Sarawak under his gift ... he has _murdered our friends_, the faithful _friends_ of Her Majesty's Government, _because they were our friends_.