On first hearing the voices, Mr Briggs had jumped to the natural conclusion that a fishing party had landed and asked Mrs Lyden to give them something to eat, and he was prepared to welcome them as became a host; but to be asked who the devil he might be, in his own house, was the last straw of the nightmare, and transformed him from a mild English gentleman into a foaming fury. However, the only effect on the strangers of Mr Briggs’ rage was to move them to greater mirth, and as he rushed out of the room he heard one man saying that they must have sent them a lunatic this time. In the kitchen he found Mrs Lyden in tears, and explanations soon followed. For some time past the island had been used as a Sinn Fein internment camp, and his unbidden guests consisted of a British colonel, two subalterns, a D.I., and a magistrate from a neighbouring county, who had given trouble to the Volunteers by insisting on holding Petty Sessions Courts in opposition to the newly-established Sinn Fein Courts. Realising that he was a prisoner in his own house, he returned to the dining-room, explained this extraordinary situation to his fellow-prisoners, and then joined them at their meal. When he had finished he went for a stroll with the colonel, who explained matters more fully to him. Most of the prisoners had been on the island for some time, and so far had found no chance of attempting to escape. The colonel himself had been captured whilst salmon-fishing on a river in the south, and then brought blindfolded at night in a car to Lough Moyra. On inspecting the boat-house, Mr Briggs found that all his boats had gone, even the one Lyden had rowed him out in, which the colonel told him had been brought over from another island, where their guards lived, and that the guards must have returned in her; further, that they were visited every second day by these guards, who brought them food, for which they had to pay a stiff price. The colonel had unearthed two packs of patience cards, and the three soldiers, with the D.I. for a fourth, played bridge from after breakfast until they went to bed. In the sitting-room there was a small library of Mr Briggs’ favourite books, and these kept the rest of the party from drowning themselves in the lake. Two days after his arrival, and just as he was thinking about retiring for the night, Lyden came in to say that an officer wished to speak to Mr Briggs outside, and on following Lyden he found a man dressed in a wonderful green uniform waiting at the front door. The officer informed Mr Briggs that he had come to take him to a republican court, which was to be held that night on the mainland, and where the case of the Republic _v._ Briggs would be heard. Mr Briggs had never heard of such a thing as a republican court, but could get no further information from the gentleman in green, and shortly afterwards the party set out in a boat for the mainland.