If they do not sign within that time the war will go on to extermination. If they do, the news will be flashed over the world immediately. At eleven o’clock they will have it at Knockaloe. The guns will be fired in the fort at Douglas, the sirens will be sounded from the steamers in the bay, and the church bells will be rung all over the island. Mona is in raptures. The war is near to an end, and all she has prayed for is about to come to pass. Yet even at that moment she is conscious of conflicting feelings. When she thinks of Robbie, she wants to shout with joy that the war has come to a right ending, and the cruel enemy who made it, with all its barbarities and horrors, is humbled to the dust. But when she thinks of Oskar, she feels ... she does not know what she feels. Where _is_ Oskar? She awakes next morning before the day has dawned and while the arc-lamps are still burning. The first thing she is aware of is a deep murmur, like that of the sea on a quiet but sullen day, which seems to come from all parts of the camp. It was the last thing she had been conscious of when she fell asleep the night before. The prisoners were then walking to and fro in their compounds, in and out of the sinister shadows, and talking, talking, talking. Could it be possible that they had walked and talked all night long? What wonder? The day that was about to dawn might be the day of doom for them. When night came again their Fatherland might have fallen; they might be men without a country--mere outcasts thrown on to an overburdened world. When the day breaks and the arc-lamps are put out, Mona sees the men moving about like wraiths in the grey light. But silence has now fallen on them. The ordinary regulations of the camp have been relaxed for the day, and they are not required to go to their workshops. When the bell rings for breakfast some of them forget they are hungry and remain in the open. It is a November day like many another, fine and clear and cold and with occasional gleams of sunshine on the sea. The cows in the cow-house are lowing, the sheep on the hill are bleating. Nature is going on as usual. Mona goes to her work in the dairy. When the men come for the milk, she can hardly bear to look into their drawn faces. The prisoners in the First Compound are standing in groups, and if they are talking at all it can only be in whispers. The sailors in the Second Compound are standing together in crowds, but the old riotous spirit is gone; there is no more shouting or swearing. The hours drag on. Looking beyond the barbed wire boundary of the encampment, Mona sees country carts rattling down the high road at a fast trot as if going to a fair. Somebody is on the church tower of Kirk Patrick doing something with the flagstaff.