The prisoners all fully admitted having taken the oath. On the 22nd of January, 1816, they were sentenced, six of them to death, to be hanged at Slachter's Nek, where the oath had been sworn by them; while the rest, after witnessing the execution of their fellows, were to undergo various punishments, ranging from banishment for life to imprisonment and fines. Martha Faber, the widow of Jan Bezuidenhout, and the sister of Cornelius Faber, one of the men to be hanged, was sentenced to banishment for life from the eastern part of the colony. Krugel's sentence was afterward changed to banishment for life, because he had taken no part in armed resistance and had done the British Government great service in the Kaffir wars; but Hendrick Prinsloo, Cornelius Faber, Stefanus Bothma, Abraham Bothma, and Theunis de Klerk were sentenced to death by hanging on the 9th of March, 1816. These sentences were within the letter of the law, but no blood had actually been shed by any of the prisoners in their small and abortive rising. It was universally supposed that the Governor would exercise his prerogative of mercy, and commute the sentence to one of banishment. But it was not so. On the 9th of March, 1816, a scaffold was raised on the ridge of stony land uniting two mountains, near which the oath had been sworn, and which has since been known throughout South Africa as Slachter's Nek, or the Butcher's Neck. The train from Port Elizabeth to the Midlands passes this spot daily, with the Rish River flowing to the right and the neck on the left. Here were brought the five men sentenced to be hanged, and the thirty-two who were to witness it; one of them, Frans Marais, had been sentenced to be tied with a rope around his neck to the foot of the gallows, while his companions were being hanged. A great crowd of people stood about, hoping and feeling convinced, even to the last moment, that a reprieve would come. Colonel Cuyler with three hundred soldiers guarded the scaffold from the people. The men asked to be allowed to sing a hymn before they mounted. Their voices were firm and clear. They appeared perfectly resigned. No reprieve came. There was a moment of awful silence in the crowd as the drop fell. But the scaffold was not strong enough to bear the weight of the bodies of the five powerful men; it broke, and the men, half strangled, were thrown to the earth. Then a wild and passionate cry arose from the people; wives, mothers, sisters, and relatives of the condemned men cried, as they rushed toward the gallows, that God Himself had intervened, and the men given back to them. It was not to be. As soon as they had recovered consciousness, the gallows were repaired and the men were forced to remount; the three hundred soldiers guarded the scaffold, and the work was done. A deep, low murmur is said to have risen from the crowd as it was completed.