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solicitude for our plight. As for us, this ‘Padre’, spoken in our own beloved Portuguese tongue, was something we had never dreamt of hearing in this place. Needless to say, the old man could not know more Portuguese than this, but before our eyes he made the sign of the cross showing a bond of something that held us together. These indeed were Japanese Christians. All in a whirl I stood up in the sand. At last I had set foot on Japanese soil, and the realization of this fact swept over me with tremendous force.
    Kichijirō was cowering behind the others with that servile smile of his. He always looks just like a mouse ready to scamper off at the slightest thing. I bit my lip with shame. Our Lord had entrusted himself to anybody—because he loved all men. And here I was with such a feeling of distrust toward this one man Kichijirō.
    ‘Quickly. Keep walking.’ It was the old man who was talking, and he urged us on with a whisper. ‘We can’t afford to be seen by the gentiles.’
    ‘The gentiles!’ Another word from our language now known to the Christians. Our forebears from the time of Xavier taught them these words. What sweat and toil it had taken to plunge the spade into this barren soil, then to fertilize it, to cultivate it until it reached this present stage. Yes, the seed had been sown; it sprouted forth with vigor; and now it was the great mission of Garrpe and myself to tend it lest it wither and die.
    That night they kept us in hiding beneath the low ceiling of their house; nearby was a barn from which the stench was carried to where we lay. They assured us, however, that there was no danger. But how had Kichijirō been able to find the Christians so quickly?
    The next day, while it was still dark, Garrpe and I changed into peasants’ clothes and together with the young men who had met us on the previous day we climbed up a mountain which lay behind the village. The Christians wanted to keep us hidden there; they had a safer place there, a charcoal hut. Thick, thick mist lay over the woods and over the path along which we walked. Eventually this mist turned into light rain.
    Arrived at our destination we heard for the first time about the place in which we now found ourselves. It was a fishing village called Tomogi, not too far from Nagasaki. It contained about two hundred households and the greater number of the villagers had already received baptism.
    ‘And how are things now?’ I asked.
    ‘Yes, father.’ It was Mokichi who spoke, a young man who accompanied us; and looking back at his friend, ‘Now we can do nothing,’ he went on. ‘If it is found out that we are Christians we will all be killed.’
    How shall I describe the joy that filled their faces when we gave them crucifixes that we had had around our necks. Both of them bowed to the very ground, and pressing the crucifixes to their foreheads spent a long time in adoration. Apparently they had not had such crucifixes for many, many years.
    ‘Is it possible that we have a priest in our midst?’ Mokichi held my hand clasped in his as he spoke. ‘And what about brothers?’
    Needless to say, these people had met neither priest nor brother for six years. Until six years ago a Japanese priest, Miguel Matsuda, and a Jesuit brother, Mateo de Coros, had secretly kept in contact with this village and its immediate surroundings, but in November 1633, worn out by labor and suffering, they had both passed to their reward.
    ‘But what has happened during these six years? What about baptism and the sacraments?’ It was Garrpe who asked the question. And the answer of Mokichi stirred us to the very depths of our being. Indeed I want through you to convey to my Superiors what he said—and not only to my Superiors but to the whole Church in Rome. As he spoke, I recalled the words of the Gospel that some seed fell upon good ground and springing up it brought forth fruit, some tenfold, some thirtyfold, some sixtyfold and some a hundredfold. For the