women and children of the village prisoner but shortly released them unhurt, having reportedly treated them well. It has been suggested that Chilembwe may have hoped to use the women and children as hostages, but this remains unclear. The attack on Magomero, and in particular the killing of Livingstone, had great symbolic significance for Chilembwe's men. The two Mauser rifles captured from the plantation formed the basis of the rebel armoury for the rest of the uprising. Mwanje had little military value but it has been proposed that the rebels may have hoped to find weapons and ammunition there. Led by Jonathan Chigwinya, the insurgents stormed one of the houses and killed the plantation's stock manager, Robert Ferguson, with a spear as he lay in bed reading a newspaper. Two of the colonists, John Robertson and his wife Charlotte, escaped into the cotton fields and walked to a neighbouring plantation to raise the alarm. One of the Robertsons' African servants, who remained loyal, was killed by the attackers. Later actions The rebels cut the Zomba–Tete and Blantyre–Mikalongwe telephone lines, delaying the spread of the news. The African Lakes' Company weapons store in Blantyre was raided by a force of around 100 rebels at around 02:00 on 24 January, before the general alarm had been raised by news of the Magomero and Mwanje attacks. The defenders mobilised after an African watchman was shot dead by the rebels. The insurgents were repulsed, but not before they had captured five rifles and some ammunition, which was taken back to Mbombwe. A number of rebels were taken prisoner during the retreat from Magomero. After the initial attacks on the Bruce plantation, the rebels returned home. Livingstone's head was taken back and displayed at the Providence Industrial Mission on the second day of the uprising as Chilembwe preached a sermon. During much of the rebellion, Chilembwe remained in Mbombwe praying and leadership of the rebels was taken by David Kaduya, a former soldier in the King's African Rifles (KAR). Under Kaduya's command, the rebels ambushed a small party of government soldiers near Mbombwe on 24 January, described as the "one reverse suffered by the government" during the uprising. By the morning of 24 January the government had levied the Nyasaland Volunteer Reserve, a settler militia and redeployed the 1st Battalion, KAR from the north of the colony. The rebels did not mount any further attack