With feelings of the most acute distress these few Englishmen, under their brave leader, put out to sea to bear away eastward; when a cry arose among the men, “Smoke, smoke, it is a steamer!” and sure enough there was a dark column rising in the air from a three-masted vessel; for a moment it was uncertain which course she was steering, but presently they distinguished her flag; it was the _Sir James Brooke_, the Borneo company’s steamer, standing right in for the Muaratabas entrance of the Sarawak River. The crew of the rajah’s boat with shouts gave way, and the prahu was urged along with all the power of their oars, to find the vessel anchored just within the mouth. Here, indeed, was a base of operations; the rajah felt the country was saved. The native boats were taken in tow, and the reinforcements of Dayaks, who were already arriving, followed up with eager speed. What were the feelings of the Chinese when they saw the smoke, then the steamer, it is not necessary to conjecture; they fired one wild volley from every available gun and musket; but the balls fell harmlessly; and when the English guns opened on them, they fled panic-stricken, pursued by the rejoicing Malays and Dayaks. Early that morning a large party of Chinese had crossed from the right to the left bank to burn the half of the town which had previously escaped; but though they succeeded in destroying the greater portion, they signed their own death warrant, as the Malays, now resuming the offensive, seized the remainder of their boats, and the relentless Dayaks pursued them through the forests. Not one of that party could have escaped; some wandered long in the forests and died of starvation, others were found hanging to the boughs of trees, preferring death by suicide to the lingering torments of hunger. All these bodies were afterwards found, and the natives said on every one of them were from five to twenty pounds sterling in cash, silver spoons or forks, or other valuables, the plunder of the English houses.