While these points were under discussion a message arrived by telephone from General Nogi’s Head-quarters to the effect that a serious fire had broken out in Port Arthur, and that some deserters from the forts had passed beyond the enemy’s lines. General Ijichi warmly protested against such conduct, and threatened to break off negotiations if there was any further attempt at destruction of property in Port Arthur. A letter was accordingly written and despatched to General Stoessel, who immediately took steps to prevent any further acts of incendiaries. At half past four o’clock the conference ended, and messages were despatched to General Nogi and General Stoessel asking for a suspension of hostilities. The armistice began at thirty-five minutes after four o’clock on the second day of the month; five hours later a telegram was sent to the Czar, the delegates dined together, and fair copies of the terms of capitulation were made in English and Japanese. The negotiations were conducted in English, the midshipman who accompanied General Reiss acting as interpreter for the Russians. At a quarter to ten o’clock on the same night General Reiss and General Ijichi signed the articles of capitulation, and Port Arthur passed out of Russian control. Committees of Russian and Japanese officers were appointed to carry out the conditions of capitulation, and to attend to details concerning the persons and properties of residents in the city. On the following day Captain Tsunoda called upon General Stoessel to invite him to meet General Nogi, and to inform him of the message sent by the Mikado commanding that the garrison should be treated with generous consideration, and that officers should be permitted to retain their swords. General Stoessel was anxious to know the whereabouts of General Kuropatkin, from whom on October the 6th he had a letter saying that he would soon come to the relief of Port Arthur. Toward the end of the same month he received another communication to the effect that General Kuropatkin had made his attempt and failed. Chinese spies none the less reported that the relieving force was already in the Kinchaw peninsula. “Where is Kuropatkin?” asked General Stoessel. Captain Tsunoda replied that he did not know, though he believed him to be somewhere in the neighbourhood of Mukden. Thereupon the General took out a map, and pointing to the Sha-ho remarked that General Kuropatkin must be near that river. “Is it not so?” he asked. Captain Tsunoda replied: “Yes. He was defeated by the army of Field-Marshal Oyama near the Sha-ho, and was compelled to retire after losing between fifty and sixty thousand men. Russians and Japanese are now facing one another on the banks of that river.” General Stoessel’s next inquiry was after the Baltic fleet. Where was that? Captain Tsunoda replied that according to newspaper accounts the fleet had not yet passed the Cape of Good Hope.