After marching past, the men formed up in one large irregularly-shaped body, some hundred or so yards further on. What is known as an _umkumbi_ or circle was now ordered to be formed,[167] when Sigananda, accompanied by Mangati and one or two of his leading councillors, entered the ring. Bambata stood apart in front of, but close to, his own men, who also formed part of the enclosure. Everyone remained standing, including the ninety-six-year-old Chief. The last-mentioned addressed the gathering in these terms: "The drugs which have just been used on and about you all have the power of preventing bullets fired by Europeans from entering your bodies or doing injury of any kind. But there will be immunity only on certain conditions, which are that you abstain from womenfolk, and that you lie down to sleep, not on mats, but on the bare ground. Anyone who ignores these directions will render himself liable to injury or to be killed. From to-day, I have resolved to take up arms against the white man! The pass-word and countersign to be used when you happen to meet and interrogate others, especially at night, is '_Wen' u tini?_' (= You, what do you say?); the one addressed must then reply, '_Insumansumane!_'" (= It's all tomfoolery!) After Sigananda had spoken, a Christian teacher named Paula endorsed what the Chief had said, laying stress on the efficacy of the drugs. "I have left my wife behind," he added, "also a waggon and oxen in Mpanza valley. Why did I come away? Because I had made up my mind to fight. The Government is casting aside its right of sovereignty and giving the same over to us. Here (pointing at them) are my tribesmen! These men will never turn back now, but will go resolutely forward. Once angered, they are implacable and continue long in their wrath." A man, Mmangwana, one of those who had just come from the Commissioner, next mumbled, with the liquid he had sipped still in his mouth: "I cannot accept the assertion that anyone, on being struck by a bullet, will not be hurt or that a bullet will not enter. I never heard of such a thing. Is, then, a man's flesh made of iron? Did not a certain outlaw[168] not long ago find his way into the Umtetwa tribe and there bring about the ruin of a whole country-side? Did he not declare that, if the Europeans came to attack him, they would be stung by bees and wasps, and be bitten by snakes? And when they (Europeans) did come, were not many innocent people destroyed by the white people, whilst this fellow escaped scot free?" The keeper of Cetshwayo's grave here remarked, also speaking with great difficulty, his mouth half-full of the talismanic draught, "How comes it, in these days, that when the King[169] sees fit to direct anything to be done, a lot of people come forward with all sorts of observations and criticisms? Who ever heard of presumption of this sort in former times?"