'A samurai ... hired us,' he gasped. 'Told us ... to look for someone in a multicoloured kimono ... and a warrior in a straw hat with red-handled swords ...'

'What did this samurai look like?' asked Jack, already fearing the answer.

'Black armour ... a golden helmet ... the crest of a red sun ...'

'Kazuki!' spat Saburo in disgust.

'I bet you he's recruited ronin all the way to Nagasaki,' cursed Miyuki.

'That means no place is safe,' said Yori as they all turned to depart.

'Wait ... the arrow ...' groaned the ronin, clutching at his wounded shoulder. 'Take it out ... you promised.'

'Of course!' said Akiko. She ripped the shaft out of the man's shoulder with a single sharp tug. The ronin gave a startled scream as the barbed arrowhead tore his flesh.

'I need it back anyway,' she remarked as the man passed out in shock.

45.

Fumi-e Ascending the foothills of Unzen-dake, Jack and his friends left the tea house behind and continued west. Pine trees clung to the slopes in an evergreen blanket that rapidly unravelled near the summit to expose a barren cone of rock. Clouds of sulphurous steam swirled around the craggy peak and Jack was glad to be skirting the volcano on this occasion rather than going over it. The thunderous mountain was like a permanent shadow in the sky and he was anxious to put as much distance between it and them as possible.

As they travelled further from the coast, the mountain air became cooler and less humid. So even when the road gave way to a rutted track, they continued to make good progress. With everyone keenly aware that Kazuki might have hired an army of ronin, they kept up their vigilance. Benkei guided from the front with Akiko on horseback as first lookout, Yori walked beside Jack, and Miyuki and Saburo took up the rear. But they encountered few other travellers along the route.

'What will be the first thing you do when you return to England?' asked Yori, almost taking two steps for every one of Jack's.

'Find my sister,' replied Jack.

'Of course, but what then?'

A smile curled Jack's lips as almost forgotten memories of home crowded his heart. 'I'll eat beef pie dripping in gravy ... Drink fresh cows' milk ... Listen to the bells of St Paul's Cathedral ... Walk across London Bridge ... Explore Cheap-side market ...' His smile faded as a mournful look entered his eyes. 'I'll pay my respects at my mother's grave ... maybe bury my father's memory there too.' He sighed heavily at the thought. 'Then I'll go home to Limehouse with Jess, if we still have one after all this time.'

'I'm sure you will,' said Yori, who began to chew his lower lip as if he might cry. 'Jack ... I'll miss you when you're gone,' he admitted.

Jack turned to his friend, surprised by such a personal expression of feelings.

'You always stood by me at the Niten Ichi Ry,' Yori continued. 'Believed in me, when no one else did.'

'Sensei Yamada believed in you,' Jack reminded him.

'Yes, but he was my teacher. You're my friend. And I only realized how great a friend you are to me, when you were gone ... when we thought you'd drowned. I know you have to leave ... but I don't want you to.'

'You could always come with me,' said Jack, half serious.

'Really?' said Yori, the idea cheering him up no end.

'That's if you could stand two years at sea cramped into a dirty cabin with only a lice-ridden hammock to sleep on!'

'Two years?' replied Yori, the prospect not seeming to dampen his enthusiasm. 'That's a good deal of time for meditation.'

Jack laughed. In every cloud Yori somehow managed to find the silver lining.

The track emerged from the forest and cut across an upland plain. The plateau and its lower slopes were divided into a jumble of terraced paddy fields. A small village, no more than a cluster of flimsy straw buildings, sat amid the dried-out beds.

As they drew near, Jack and the others could hear the sounds of weeping.

Entering the village, they passed thatched farm huts in various states of collapse. A wooden handcart with a broken wheel was propped up against a ramshackle barn. A few scrawny chickens ran loose in the road. The place was clearly impoverished and virtually deserted. There were signs of a struggle: several doors kicked in; a broken hoe; the remains of a fire, the ruin still smoking. And a large patch of blood-caked earth drying in the sun.

An old man in a ragged kimono was crumpled in a heap beside the entrance to a dilapidated house. Bony fingers covered his face as he sobbed loudly. At their approach, he glanced up fearfully, his half-starved body trembling all over. His face was worn with time and tears, his eyes bloodshot and sunken with grief.

Yori knelt beside him and asked, 'What's happened?'

Recognizing the robes of a monk, the old man calmed a little. He swallowed, seeming to find it hard to speak, then spat out a name as if it was poison. 'Matsukura! The daimyo of Shimabara.'

'A daimyo?' queried Akiko, dismounting from her horse. 'But he should be protecting farmers like you.'

The old man shook his head. 'Our previous lord, Arima, certainly did. But he was exiled last year by the Shogun for his Christian beliefs. Now we're under the rule of a tyrant ... and he's hell-bent on persecuting us Christian Japanese ' The old man suddenly clammed up, realizing he may have said too much. 'Who are you people?'

From what the old man had revealed about himself, Jack decided to take a risk and removed his hat. The man's eyes widened like saucers when he saw Jack's face.

'You're a foreigner! A ... Christian?' he asked, almost hopeful.

Jack nodded his head. 'You can trust us. My name is Jack.'

'I'm ... Takumi,' the old man hesitantly replied, and bowed his head.

Now he opened his heart to them.

'You must have seen the monstrous new castle in Shimabara?' he began, wiping his nose with his sleeve. 'Matsukura cleared an entire Christian district just to make way for it. All those he evicted he forced into slavery to build his prideful fortress. And to pay for his folly he's doubled the rice tax on all farmers ... yet he still demands more!'

'So his samurai came to take the rest of your rice?' said Saburo.

'No, we've very little left,' sniffed Takumi. 'It's not enough for him to tax us to death. One of his patrols visited our village and we were forced to perform fumi-e.'

'Fumi-e?' questioned Jack.

Takumi nodded. 'We must ... trample ... on a picture of our Lord Jesus Christ,' he explained, his face contorting from horror to revulsion at the memory of such a sacrilegious act.

'But why?' asked Saburo.

'To prove we aren't Christians. If anyone man, woman or child refused, they were taken away to be executed on top of Unzen-dake.'

'So why did they leave you behind?'

Takumi's expression now became guilt-ridden. 'I ... I performed fumi-e.'

He rose to his knees, hands clasped in desperate prayer.

'Oh Lord, please forgive me for my sins. I only did it to save my family ...' He now turned to Jack, almost pleading. 'But my daughter wouldn't ... and now she and my granddaughter are ...' He broke into wailing sobs.

'I know your God will forgive you,' said Yori, trying to console the broken man.

Takumi stared up at Jack again, his eyes wild and lost to grief.

'Go now!' he cried. 'Leave this Hell, young foreigner, while you still have a chance.'

'That's good advice,' said Benkei, already taking the lead down the road.

'I can't walk on by,' said Jack. 'Not when fellow Christians are suffering like this.'

'A rescue mission? We can't risk that,' Miyuki argued. 'Matsukura's samurai must be on our trail by now. And this daimyo's got an axe to grind with foreigners like you. With the Shogun and Kazuki already baying for your blood, you don't need another enemy.'

Jack pointed to the hellish peak that had haunted him since their arrival. 'But there are innocent women and children up there being tortured and killed, purely for their beliefs!'

Akiko looked torn by the situation, her heart and her mind at odds with one another. 'You can't save every Christian in Japan, Jack,' she said eventually. 'Our priority must be to get you safely to Nagasaki and on your way home. You're the one Christian we can save.'

'But isn't this exactly what a samurai is supposed to stand up for? Honour, Benevolence and Rectitude.'

'It's not about bushido. It's about what's possible. There are just six of us against a daimyo and his entire army. What difference can we make?'

As harsh as the decision was, both Saburo and Miyuki nodded their heads in agreement with her.

Yori now piped up. 'A tsunami once washed ten thousand fish up on the shores of Japan,' he began. 'A monk went down to the beach, saw the fish flapping on the sand, and one by one started to pick them up and throw them back into the sea. A samurai sitting nearby saw the monk and laughed at him. "Foolish monk! There're miles of beach and thousands of fish. What difference will that make?" The monk picked up a gasping fish and tossed it back into the sea. With a knowing smile, he replied, "It made a difference to that one."'

46.

Lord's Prayer They crouched at the lip of the volcano and peered into its depths. The immense crater was a desolate bowl of black ash and grey rock smeared with patches of sickly yellow clay. Vents torn into the earth bled sulphurous clouds of steam, while lurid ponds and bubbling mudpools blistered the ground like grotesque boils. As wafts of vomit-inducing steam passed overhead, a shrill screaming filled the ghastly air.

'Sounds as if we're already too late,' choked Saburo, his voice muffled behind his hand in a vain attempt to block the stench of rotting eggs.

The constant screeching, like ragged fingernails down slate, set Jack's teeth on edge. Yori was forced to cover his ears, the anguished cries of the dying too much for his sensitive soul.

'That's just the noise of the "Great Shout" jigoku,' croaked Takumi, having guided them up Unzen-dake to daimyo Matsukura's favoured place of execution. He pointed a gnarled finger towards the seething Hell at the base of the crater, where steam rocketed out like a dragon spitting fire.

Beside the boiling Hell pool, a unit of samurai stood guard over a group of cowering villagers. Not that any of them could put up much of a fight. They were all emaciated, many were women, some old men and the youngest a mere babe-in-arms.

'The steam's so dense I can hardly see them,' remarked Akiko.

'For a ninja that's an advantage, not a problem,' Miyuki replied pointedly. 'It'll cover our escape.'

'But how are we going to free them in the first place?' said Saburo. 'There must be at least thirty soldiers.'

Jack looked around the boulder-strewn crater, trying to devise a plan. There were too many samurai for a full frontal attack. They would have to rely on stealth and ninja tactics to overcome such a force. He was about to ask Miyuki for ideas, when 'DO YOU RENOUNCE YOUR FAITH?' boomed a voice that seemed to emanate from the very depths of Hell.

'That's Matsukura!' cried Takumi, shrinking back in fear.

The samurai lord was dressed in purple and red robes and wore a coal-black helmet crowned with stag antlers. His face was a knot of fury as he glared at the scrawny farmer trembling before him. At the man's feet, cast upon the pitted ground, was a stone tablet into which was carved the image of Christ on the cross.

'Stamp on your god or DIE!' demanded the daimyo.

With a single shake of his head, the farmer knelt before the effigy and put his hands together in prayer. Incensed by such a blatant act of defiance, daimyo Matsukura backhanded the man across the jaw. The farmer's head rocked with the force of the blow. A thin stream of blood seeped from his mouth, but he kept praying.

'BOIL HIM ALIVE!' yelled daimyo Matsukura.

Two samurai seized the farmer by his bony shoulders and dragged him towards the steaming jigoku. The farmer now prayed out loud, 'Our Father who art in heaven hallowed be thy '. They threw him into the scalding Hell. The farmer plunged beneath the super-heated waters and came up howling the Lord's Prayer ' on EARTH as it is in HEAVEN. Give us '. His agonized cries were drowned out by a screech of steam. Scrabbling for the bank, he was pushed back by the spear of a samurai. 'FORGIVE those who trespass against us ' he gasped. The daimyo watched with a fiendish glee as the farmer writhed in agony. ' deliver us from evil ' The man's skin was peeling off in flakes, his flesh turning red raw. ' thine is the kingdom ' Then the tortured farmer's voice faded towards the end of the prayer ' forever and ever ' before he slipped beneath the bubbling surface.

'AMEN!' cried the condemned villagers, finishing the prayer for their fellow worshipper. Tears streamed down their faces as they chanted 'AMEN!' over and over again.

The daimyo glowered at this defiant protest to the Shogun's outlawing of Christianity.

'NEXT!' he bellowed, now apoplectic with rage.

A young woman and her daughter were shoved forward by the samurai guard. The girl looked too young to even understand what was going on. She just clung to her mother's leg, quivering with fear.

Beside Jack, Takumi gasped and fell to his knees, clawing at the black ash around him. 'Those are my girls!'

Sickened by the gruesome scene he'd just witnessed, Jack knew in his heart he'd been right to risk his life for these innocent farmers. He couldn't allow such an atrocity to happen again.

Jack unsheathed his katana. There was little time for stealth now. 'We'll have to gamble everything on a surprise attack.'

'Wait! I've a better idea!' said Saburo. 'Yori and Benkei, come with me. Jack, you go with Akiko and Miyuki. Get close to the samurai. Then, when I give the signal, free the prisoners and run as fast as you can.'

'What's the signal?' asked Jack as Saburo raced off with Benkei and Yori in tow.

'You'll know it when you see it,' he replied with a roguish grin.

Leaving Takumi to pray for his family, Jack, Akiko and Miyuki darted over the lip of the crater. They sprinted from boulder to gully to rock, using the cover of steam to hide their movements. But the billowing clouds were as much a curse as a blessing. Although they concealed their approach from the samurai, they also hindered their progress. It was hard to see where they were going twice they lost sight of their target and once Akiko even stumbled. Jack just hoped they could reach the little girl and her mother in time.

They hunkered down behind a black boulder. They were now so close they could hear the terrified mutterings of the villagers. Some were praying, others begging and many sobbing. The young woman and her daughter faced the daimyo.

'Stamp on your god or die!' ordered the daimyo.

'We can't wait much longer,' said Akiko in a tense whisper. 'What's Saburo up to?'

Through the swirling steam, Jack caught a glimpse of Saburo and the others behind one of the larger boulders along the crater rim. 'I'm not sure. But whatever he's planning, he'd better be quick about it.'

In response to the daimyo's command, the little girl had picked up the effigy of Christ and was hugging it to her chest. Daimyo Matsukura snatched the stone tablet from her grasp.