And what was the story? Briefly this. About a month before the attack on the Police in Mpanza valley (4th April, 1906), and when the Police were attempting to arrest Bambata for refusing to obey a summons from the Government, a Native messenger arrived to say Dinuzulu wished Bambata to come to him, the former having heard he was unhappy through being harassed by the Government and Europeans generally. After conferring with members of the tribe until lately presided over by himself, he left for Usutu, taking with him the woman and three children (by two other wives). Travelling on foot, the party reached Usutu in a few days. Here Bambata had several interviews with Dinuzulu and his indunas, Mankulumana and Mgwaqo. He was treated with every consideration. Suitable accommodation and food were found for him, his wife and children. Bambata informed his wife that, at the interviews he had had with Mankulumana and others, he had been reproved for showing cowardice on the occasion of the Police entering his ward to arrest him. It was considered he should have shown fight. Bambata queried how it was possible for him to go to war with Europeans. "Have you no people?" they asked. "A few," he replied. "Few though they be, you ought to have come into conflict. What do you suppose caused us to fight in 1879? Do you think we did so by the aid of drugs?"
The day before Bambata's departure for Natal, he was summoned to where Dinuzulu, Mankulumana and others were. "The room I was seated in," says Siyekiwe, "was close by where Dinuzulu was with the men referred to, and I could hear distinctly what was said. I heard Mankulumana say to Bambata 'There is nothing more that we have to say to you to-day. To-day we give you this weapon, a Mauser rifle, and we say: Go across into Natal and commence hostilities. We give you Ngqengqengqe, whom we direct to go back with you, also Cakijana.... After causing an outbreak of hostilities, you will remove into the Nkandhla district. Do not be afraid through thinking that the fighting is brought about by you. We, not you, are responsible for it....' The words I have given were spoken by Makulumana in the presence of Dinuzulu in an audible voice.... My husband said he hoped that they would not deceive him, make a fool of him, and deny the fact that they were the originators of what they wanted him to do. My husband was also instructed thus: 'After you have started the fighting and fled for refuge to the Nkandhla forest, we will meet you there.'"
The rifle, said to have been handed to Bambata by Mankulumana in Dinuzulu's presence, with cartridges done up in a piece of white cloth, were seen by the three. Bambata then left. Some time afterwards, Dinuzulu informed the woman that a rebellion had broken out in Mpanza valley, and that her husband had fled to Nkandhla forest.
When the Commissioner for Native Affairs made his visit to Usutu early in April, 1906, the woman was there the whole time, carefully concealed in the harem.[313]
There is no necessity to refer to other items in the story, such as the visits and harbouring of various rebels, seeing they belong rather to criminal proceedings than to a history. These proceedings, as well as the foregoing crucial fact, will be briefly dealt with later. Suffice it to say, the woman and children had been actually harboured by Dinuzulu, fed, accommodated and medically treated at his own expense for a period of over fifteen months. During that period, the boy was appointed cleaner of the large number of guns possessed by Dinuzulu, many of them illegally held. And yet the Chief had been called on officially from time to time to produce all guns in his possession for registration.
Not long after the woman and children had given their sensational evidence, the one corroborating the other, they were permitted to return to their relations at Mpanza.
The position now became clearer, though still complicated.
Sir Henry McCallum's object, when he had his interviews with Dinuzulu, was so to rouse the Chief to a sense of his duty as to cause him, on getting back to Usutu, forthwith to put his house in order and discontinue his unsatisfactory behaviour. We have seen the way in which he treated the Governor's suggestion about appearing before the Commission, and what he did about handing over the rebels who had taken refuge in his ward. Although called on later to deliver up other rebels, declared by reliable informants to have been recently at Usutu, he neglected to do so, on the plea that the men had not been there. The Governor also advised that all firearms in his possession should be given up. According to the evidence of Bambata's wife and children, especially the boy, and to other testimony, Dinuzulu possessed many more guns than had been registered, consequently he had failed between the time of getting home and when the woman and children deserted—a period of at least three weeks—to act on the Governor's advice.[314] What was his object in not wishing to disclose that he had these unregistered guns? He, moreover, had held a hunt in August, extending over a fortnight, in the Black Umfolozi valley, at which, as reliable information went to show, he secretly inspected about 150 breech-loading rifles in possession of his people, including his bodyguard, 'Nkomondala.' On the same occasion, he is said to have told his most confidential advisers "that he had experienced great difficulty in getting Mauser ammunition, but that there was not the same difficulty with regard to the ordinary .303 ammunition, as he could get this from agents at Delagoa Bay ... and was expecting 2,000 rounds from that source, which would be conveyed to him in bundles of cat-skins, ostensibly brought up from there by Portuguese Natives for sale amongst the Zulus."[315]
In reply to Dinuzulu's remark that he had not assumed the position of Government Induna, that being one of the conditions under which he was repatriated from St. Helena in 1898, the Governor had told him he would at once be given that position, but such appointment would necessitate his coming into closer touch with the Magistrate, Nongoma, than was possible at Usutu. The suggestion that, in assuming the position, he should move closer to the magistracy was, however, apparently ignored.