Sketches of Our Life at SarawakMcDougall, Henriette
History
Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak
McDougall, Henriette
McDougall, Henriette, 1817-1886 -- Travel -- Malaysia -- Sarawak; Sarawak (Malaysia) -- Description and travel
It was about ten o'clock when she was brought in--a pitiful sight, her
dress covered with blood, her hair matted with grass and dust, her
fingers bleeding. It did not seem possible she could live after
remaining all night in this dreadful state. She told us that she and her
husband did not awake until the house was full of men. They had only
time to jump up and run down their bath-room stairs, he catching up a
spear for their defence. Opening the bath-room door it creaked, and a
man came running round the house shouting, "Assie Moy," the name of the
woman-prisoner they had seized. He struck down Mrs. Crookshank with a
sword he had in his hand, and Mr. Crookshank attacked him with the
spear. They struggled together till the Chinaman cut his right arm to
the bone, and the spear fell from his hand; then, seeing his wife lying
dead, as he thought, in the grass, he managed to get away to the edge of
the jungle, and sitting down, faint with loss of blood, saw his house
burn to the ground. As morning dawned he found his way to the Datu
Bandar's house, where the Rajah had already arrived, and Middleton.
Meanwhile the Chinese, chasing the fowls from the burning fowl-house,
came upon Mrs. Crookshank lying on her face, and one of them, seizing
her by her hair, desired her to follow him. She could not walk a step,
so he carried her in his arms; but when she groaned with the pain, he
laid her in a ditch near the road. Many Chinese came and stood by her:
they covered her with their jackets, one held an umbrella over her head,
another offered her some tobacco, but they would not let any of our
people touch her until an order came from the kunsi. We had sent our
eldest school-boy to reassure her, and he stood beside her until our
servants could bring her away safely. As soon as the Bishop had dressed
the wounded in the town, he came home for some breakfast. When I saw him
I called out, for his pith hat was covered with blood. "It is only
fowl's blood," said he, "don't be frightened: they killed a chicken over
my head as a sign of friend ship." The Middletons' servants came to us
early in the morning, and said that they did not know what had become of
their mistress, but the two little boys were killed by the Chinese,
their heads cut off, and their bodies thrown into the burning. Later on,
we heard that Mrs. Middleton, after seeing Mr. Wellington killed in
trying to defend her, had escaped into the bath-room and hidden herself
in one of the big water-jars; but, the door being open, she had seen her
children murdered, and then had got out of the jar and run into the
jungle, where she concealed herself in a little pool of water, much
hidden by overhanging boughs. There this poor mother remained for some
hours, until a Chinaman from the town came to the spring, carrying a
drawn sword in his hand. "Oh, sir, pray don't kill me!" she called out.
"Oh no!" answered the man, "I am a friend of Mr. Peter" (her husband),
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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