Rajah spoke to the school-children, and we all amused ourselves with the little Middletons, boys of four and five, strutting along with turbaned hats and long walking-sticks. It was a dull evening, and we all felt unaccountably gloomy. We fancied it was because Rajah was not well enough to come and dine with us, as he had purposed in the morning; but during dinner I remembered afterwards that the Bishop said, "If any sudden alarm were to take place to-night it would rouse him and make him all right." We certainly went to bed without expecting anything to happen, but, about twelve o'clock, we were roused by shouts and screams, and the firing of guns. We got up and looked out. The Rajah's bungalow was in flames across the river. On our side the Middletons' house was burning, and Mr. Crookshank's new house, a little way up the road, was soon after on fire. The most horrid noises filled the air, there was evidently fighting going on at the two forts at either end of the town by the river's side. We knew there were very few defenders at either of these two forts, and that they would soon be taken; for by this time we were sure it must be the Chinese miners who had fulfilled their threat to take the town. We thought, "When the forts are taken they will come to us." Presently the brothers, William and John Channon, who lived near us, came to our house, bringing their wives and children for shelter. They brought news that the fort near their houses was taken and burnt, and they dare not stay in their own cottages, as they were Government servants, and would be obnoxious to the rebels. We took our children out of bed and dressed them, and then we all went down to the school-house, from whence we could see the burning houses and hear what was going on in the town. A Chinaman came up from the bazaar, begging us not to go to them for shelter, for they had been warned by the kunsi not to harbour any English people, and they dared not take us in. Poor creatures, they were in terror for themselves, as they were not of the same tribe of Chinese as the Bau people. What should we do? [Illustration: WE ALL WENT DOWN TO THE SCHOOL-HOUSE, FROM WHENCE WE COULD SEE THE BURNING HOUSES. _Page_ 128.]