Wessels resumed his seat than Dr. Coster, as was then thought, repenting the fulfilment of his promise and casting off all disguise, or, as is more probable, carried away by an over-mastering excitement and strong personal and racial feeling and stimulated by concentration upon one aspect only of the case, claimed the right to address the Court again after the advocate for the defence had spoken. Dr. Coster has the reputation among those who know him of being a thoroughly honourable and straight-forward gentleman. As a Hollander no doubt he felt deeply in a matter in which Hollanderism was the _casus belli_; as public prosecutor it was his duty to prosecute, not to judge; and one prefers to think that in peculiar and trying circumstances he forgot the pledge he had given and remembered only the cause of his party. In a short but very violent speech he depicted in the blackest terms the actions of the men against whom he had agreed not to seek exemplary punishment, and pointing out the provisions of the Roman-Dutch law, claimed that the Court should apply it in this case in preference to the statutes of the country, and demanded from the Court the severest possible penalty which could be imposed under that law and under the Thirty-three Articles and the Gold Law as well. With reference to the last-named, Dr. Coster having mentioned the provision regarding the confiscation of property, said that upon this point he would not speak but would leave the matter to the judgment of the Court. The Court was then adjourned until the morning of the 28th, ostensibly in order to enable the judge to consider the evidence and make up his mind. The majority of the prisoners, utterly unsuspicious of what lay before them, made all necessary arrangements to return to their homes and avocations upon the conclusion of the trial, believing that a nominal fine would be the penalty imposed. Many of them had taken return tickets from Johannesburg available for two days. The public throughout the Transvaal and South Africa anticipated nothing more than a nominal punishment upon the majority and a fine of a few thousand pounds upon the signatories to the letter of invitation.