A timber-ship, the _Planet_, was lying in the river, and Mr. Johnson requested that the women and children of the mission should be sent on board until the panic passed away, and the old Datu was got safely out of the place. The fort and Government House were manned and armed, and the rest of the Europeans sheltered there. The Hacket family went down at once, and in the evening we sent Miss McKee and the two youngest children with her; but Mab was ill of fever, and could not be moved. So the Bishop and I stayed with her, and ten Chinamen guarded our house. Mr. Chalmers had come from Merdang with news that some of those Dyaks had joined the Datu Hadji, and also some bad Lundus, who had been punished for sedition four years before. We all sat up that night; but I was too much occupied with my sick child to be nervous about anything else. The night passed over without any rising of the disaffected, and the next day Gapoor consented to leave the country quietly, finding no chief Malays would stand by him, and to be taken in a Government gunboat to a brig just leaving the river. Thus, through God's mercy and the loyalty of the people, no harm came of this plot, except that Mr. and Mrs. Hacket decided to leave the mission, not being strong enough to stand such alarms. They went to Malacca, where he became Government chaplain, and died there of consumption, after some years' service. The heat of Sarawak climate was so injurious to our child Mab, who had frequent attacks of fever, that as soon as the place was quiet again, we resolved to pay another visit to England. The Bishop's health was much shaken, and the doctors at Singapore ordered him home at once. But it was winter, and we were afraid of taking our children too quickly into the rigorous cold of England; therefore we took a passage in the _Bahiana_, a steamer which had brought out a telegraph cable to lay between Singapore and Batavia, and having accomplished her purpose, was returning empty to England. The Bishop went with us as far as Bombay, and then took P. and O. boat to England; whilst we called first at Mauritius, then at the Cape of Good Hope, staying some days at each place, and at the latter adding several passengers to our small party. We proceeded very happily until we were within a day's steam of the Island of St. Vincent, off the coast of Africa; then the great crank of the steam-engine snapped in two, and we had to sail. It took us ten days to beat up to the island, for a large screw steamer was never intended to be propelled by sails.