Under the orders and with the connivance of Cetywayo, the chiefs Umbellini and Manyanyoba perpetrated the most horrid cruelties. Atrocious outrages had been committed long previously, but the Transvaal republican authorities had not apparently considered it expedient to report them fully. The little town of Luneberg was undoubtedly saved by a company of troops sent there by Colonel Wood. This officer had it in his power, when passing through Manyanyoba's country, to crush him and his warriors, but accepted in good faith the statement of that chief, professing a desire to come under the British Government. In spite of this, on the 10th of February, a Zulu war party, led by Umbellini, crossed the Pongolo, and was joined on the north by a strong force of Manyanyoba's people, led by Manyanyoba himself.[27] The combined force consisted of 1500 men. At half-past 3 a.m. of the 11th February, they reached the mission station of the Rev. Mr. Wagner, only four miles from Luneberg, and then commenced a scene of most atrocious murder. Men, women, and children were massacred. The houses of the Christian natives were given to the flames, and no fewer than seven children were burnt alive. From Wagner's they went to Nomapela's kraal, where they killed two men, eleven women, and fifteen children. Thence they proceeded to Luhlanya's kraal, where they murdered one man, two women, and two children. But it is unnecessary to prolong the narrative; suffice it to say that they went through the country with fire and sword, sparing neither age nor sex, and plundering wherever they had an opportunity. Bodies of women and children were found frightfully mutilated, and at Mr. Wagner's house a woman was found still alive, who bore thirty-seven assegai wounds on her body. [Sidenote: _Life at Helpmakaar._]