The third and fourth charges were those which, when first reported in Natal, produced considerable alarm and indignation in the minds of the colonists. A defiance of the authority, both of magistrate and Supreme Chief, and insult offered to their messengers, looked indeed like actual rebellion. The charges, however, dwindled down to very little when properly examined. The “defiance” in question consisted only in an answer made to the magistrate to the effect that he could not send in as desired five young men—in possession of unregistered guns—because they had run away, he knew not whither, being frightened by the course pursued by the magistrate’s messenger; and that he could not find eight others, said to have come into the colony with guns, and to belong to his tribe, upon such insufficient data, and unless their names were given to him. The sincerity of which reasoning was shortly proved by the fact that, as soon as their names were notified to him, he did send in three of those very lads, with their guns, and two more belonging to other members of their party, besides sending in with their guns those who had worked for Mr. W. E. Shepstone, and who probably thought that the name of their master was a sufficient guarantee for their right to possess firearms. The charge of insulting the native messengers from Government, of which a great deal was made at first, proved to be of very little consequence when investigated, but it is one to which special attention should be given because, indirectly, it is connected with the Zulu War. The facts are as follows: One of the chief witnesses for the prosecution, Mawiza, a messenger of the Government, stated in his evidence-in-chief on the second day of the trial, that on the occasion of his carrying a message from Government, the prisoner’s people had “taken all his things from him,” and had “stripped, and taken him naked” into the Chiefs presence. But on the fourth day, in answer to a question from His Excellency, he said “that they had _intended_ to strip him but had allowed him to retain his trousers and boots,” thereby contradicting himself flatly. Nevertheless the court being asked by His Excellency whether it required further evidence on this point, replied in the negative. They did not even ask a question, on the subject, of Mawiza’s two companion messengers, Mnyembe and Gayede, though both these were examined; Mnyembe’s evidence-in-chief being cut short _before_ he came to that part of the story, and Gayede’s taken up just _after_ it.