The prisoners, with the exception of the lads, were all executed. The lads were put to work on the gunboats, and became excellent and trustworthy sailors—one, who was the son of a Lanun of rank, subsequently commanded the present Rajah's former yacht the _Aline_. Some of the captives were Dutch subjects, and some were British subjects from Singapore. In the captured pirate prahu there were found five Dutch and one Spanish ensign. Sailing along past the delta of the Rejang, when off the pretty little village of Palo, which was hidden from their view, the pirates had observed a long canoe laden with nipah palm leaves, with a man in the stern and a woman in the bows, paddling for dear life to escape. A light canoe manned by half-a-dozen men was at once despatched in chase, and quickly overhauled the poor couple, the man crying out that he surrendered, and the woman screaming with fear. It was a pretty example of the biter bit—a neatly contrived trap. Gliding alongside to secure their apparently helpless captives, without troubling to exchange paddles for weapons, to their amazement the pirates saw an upheaval of the leaves and several armed men spring up, together with the steersman and the disguised man in the bows. This startling development took the pirates so completely by surprise that they were all speared before they could seize their weapons. The Melanaus then quickly disappeared up a creek. Their leader was the late Atoh, a young man then, who afterwards became the Government chief of Palo. He is perhaps better known to the present generation as Haji Abdul Rahman. The following translation of a paper written by a Nakoda Amzah, one of the rescued captives, and found amongst his papers after his death, gives a good account of the voyage of this fleet, and of its destruction. He was a Kampar (Sumatra) Malay, who lived in Sarawak since his rescue. He, his grandson, and another Malay were killed in the Rejang in 1880 by a head-hunting party of Dayaks. He was noted for his courage. He had been twice before captured by pirates. In this translation the word "pirate" is substituted for Bajau, Lanun, and Balanini, which the writer uses indiscriminately, and no doubt the crews of the piratical prahus were an admixture of these tribes.