“Aw well,” says the third man, speaking with a snatch of the Anglo-Manx, “I wouldn’t trust but my case is worse nor either of yours. I’m German born, that’s truth enough, but I’ve lived in this very island since I was a lump of a lad, and maybe I’m as Manx myself as some ones they make magistrates and judges of. More than that, my only son was born here, and when he grew up to be a fine young fellow, and they said his King and country needed him, he was one of the first to join up and go off to the war. Well, what d’ye think? Twelve month ago he was wounded and invalided home, and then, being no use for foreign service, they sent him to Knockaloe as one of the guard--to guard, among others, his own father. Think of that now! My son outside the barbed wire and me inside! And one of these days he’ll have to march me down to Douglas and ship me off to Germany, where I’ve neither chick nor child, no kith nor kin.... Yes, _my_ lad, that I used to carry on my back and rock in his cradle!” Mona is aghast. Something seems to creep between her skin and flesh. Never before, in all the long agony of the war, with its blood and tears and terror, has she heard of anything so cruel. What a mockery of the Almighty! Race, race, race! Mother and author of half the wars of the world--when, oh when would the Father of all living wipe the blasphemous word out of the mouths of Christian men? But the conversation Mona has overheard cuts deeper and closer than that even. If all German-born prisoners are to be sent back to Germany, Oskar will have to go, and what _then?_ That night a knock comes to her door. It is Oskar himself. His eyes are wild and his lips are trembling. “You’ve heard of the new order?” he asks. “Yes. Will you have to go back also?” “I must. I suppose I must.” The first batch to go are from the “millionaires’” quarters. Being rich they have reconciled themselves to the conditions. Park Lane or the Thiergarten--what matter which? In their black clothes, their spats and fur-lined coats, and with their suit-cases packed in a truck, they march off merrily. The next to go are from the Second Compound, and they make a different picture--ill-clad, ill-shod, without an overcoat among them, with nothing in their pockets except the little money they have drawn at the last moment from the camp bank, and nothing in their hands except the canvas bags which contain all their belongings. It is a miserable January morning, with drizzling rain and a thick mist over the mountains. At a sharp word of command the men go tramping towards the gate, a silent and melancholy lot, totally unlike the singing and swaggering gang who came up the avenue four years ago.