No time was now lost in making such preparations for defence as the principal towns afforded. An invasion of the colony by the victorious Zulu army was hourly expected, and with some reason, since retaliation for our invasion might naturally be feared. Sir Bartle Frere himself remarks, on February 12th (C. 2269): “It has become painfully evident that the Zulu king has an army at his command which could almost any day unexpectedly invade Natal; and owing to the great extent of frontier, and utter helplessness of the undisciplined hordes of Natal natives to offer effectual resistance, the Zulus might march at will through the country, devastating and murdering, without a chance of being checked, as long as they abstained from attacking the entrenched posts of Her Majesty’s troops, which are from 50 to 100 miles apart. The capital and all the principal towns are at this moment in ‘laager,’ prepared for attack, which even if successfully resisted, would leave two-thirds of them in ashes, and the country around utterly desolated.”[149] Whatever reasonable fears of retaliation were entertained by the people of Natal, they soon rose to panic-height in consequence of the great alarm displayed by the chief authorities, both military and civil. By their orders, the central part of ’Maritzburg, including the Court House, was barricaded with loopholed boarding, as a refuge for the citizens in case of attack, wells were dug inside the Court House, and notice given that the usual guns, announcing the arrival of the English mails, would be discontinued for the present, but that three guns would be fired as a signal for the citizens to go into the laager within three hours, while four guns would signify that the danger was urgent, and they must fly into it at once, taking stores of food, which they were to have ready beforehand, beside what the borough council had provided, and they must then comply with an elaborate series of rules, which was published in the Government _Gazette_. So great, indeed, was the scare that some of the citizens of ’Maritzburg did actually take refuge one night in the laager, and others hurriedly left the colony, while many natives, living near the city, slept out, with their wives and children, some nights in the open field. On that night, when terror was at its height, it is said that the bedding of the Governors and their staff, together with the official records of Government House, was removed to the neighbouring gaol, a strong stone building, just under the guns of Fort Napier, which was chosen as a place of refuge for their Excellencies. It is also said that Lord Chelmsford’s horse was kept saddled and bridled all night; and a stretcher was placed, by express order, outside the window of a lady in delicate health, without her knowledge, so as to be ready in case of emergency—as if a Zulu impi could drop suddenly, at a moment’s notice, into the middle of the city, the frontier, at the nearest point, being sixty miles off.