'Throw this evil child and her mother into Hell!' he ordered.

Two samurai grabbed the woman by her hair. A third picked up the little girl around her waist. Kicking and screaming, she and her mother were borne towards their deaths.

Unable to hold off any longer, Jack and Akiko rose to their feet, while Miyuki pulled a shuriken from her belt. Then an ominous rumbling was heard above the screech of the jigoku. The clouds parted briefly to reveal shale trickling down the crater sides, rapidly building into a flood of stone, clay and ash. Leading the charge, a huge boulder came bouncing down the crater slope towards the samurai and villagers, gathering speed as it went.

'That must be the signal!' cried Miyuki in disbelieving horror.

47.

Landslide Daimyo Matsukura glared up at the thundering avalanche. He neither ran nor showed any fear. His expression was one of utter outrage, as if indignant that the volcano would dare to interrupt his executions. His samurai guard, however, panicked upon seeing the lethal landslide. They scattered in terror, scrambling up the crater's opposite slope, leaving the shackled villagers directly in its path. The two soldiers, who were dragging the mother by her hair, let go and fled for their lives. But the samurai with the little girl remained determined to toss her into the boiling jigoku.

Jack sprinted from his hiding place to stop him, his feet crunching on the brittle ash as he powered towards the murderous samurai. But he knew all his efforts would be in vain he was just too far away to save the little girl's life.

He flinched as a flash of light shot past his shoulder. His mind registered the glint of steel at the same time as the shuriken struck the samurai in the neck.

Miyuki!

The throwing star embedded its point deep into the samurai's throat. With a gargled scream, he dropped the girl to the stony ground and yanked out the shuriken. Lurching in pain and shock, blood spurting out, he tripped. A scalding hiss greeted him as he tumbled head first into the boiling waters of the Hell.

Dashing over, Jack scooped up the little girl in his arms and carried her away from the infernal jigoku. She stared up at him with big round eyes.

'I knew you'd come!' she said, tiny fingers clasping a strand of his blond hair.

'You knew?'

'I prayed for you, Jesus, to save us.'

'I'm not Jesus,' he quickly corrected her. 'I'm Jack, from England.'

But the little girl merely gave him a knowing smile.

The girl's mother crawled over on her knees, weeping.

Jack pulled her to her feet. 'This way!' he ordered as the landslide surged in a relentless torrent down the slope towards them.

Amid the chaos, Akiko had darted over to the villagers and cut their bonds. Rounding them up like sheep, she cried, 'Follow me!'

The villagers obediently scurried through the mist after her. Miyuki took up the rear guard, ensuring none were left behind and that no samurai tried to stop them.

Jack raced after his friends, the girl in one arm, her mother pulled along in his other hand. The avalanche now roared in their ears like a thunderous waterfall. They had but seconds before the first rocks ploughed into them.

Out of a swirling steam cloud, a pair of stag antlers materialized like the crooked horns of Satan. Daimyo Matsukura stood blocking their escape.

'Your head will roll for this, gaijin!' he bellowed, raising a mighty double-edged katana to smite him down.

With both hands occupied, Jack couldn't draw his swords in time. Daimyo Matsukura swung his cruel katana to take Jack's head from his shoulders in a single slice. As it whistled towards his neck, the steel blade parted the wafts of sulphurous steam, cleaving a clear trail in its wake. Jack went to duck beneath the blade, when daimyo Matsukura and his sword disappeared before his eyes. The mother screamed as a colossal boulder tore by, inches from them, crushing the samurai lord and taking his sword with it.

No, your head was the one to roll! thought Jack, resuming their mad dash for safety.

As the landslide overtook them, it was like trying to dodge a stampeding herd of oxen. Boulders bounced like oversized cannonballs, rocks flew like missiles, ash billowed around them in blinding clouds. The ground constantly shifted under their feet. With every step, they were in danger of being sucked along with the cascading debris and swept into the hellish jigoku.

But suddenly they were beyond the worst of it and scrabbling up the ash-covered lip of the volcano. Hands reached out and pulled the three of them to safety. Jack lay gasping on the crater's edge, the girl still in his arms.

'Maiko! Rimika!' cried Takumi, first embracing his daughter, then reaching for his granddaughter.

Jack let Rimika go and she ran into her grandfather's arms.

'We were saved ... by Jesus!' she said, her eyes mesmerized by Jack's hair.

'Thank the Lord!' sobbed Takumi, his prayed-for reunion overwhelming him. 'Thank the Lord!'

'Or you could just thank us,' said Saburo, jogging over with Benkei and Yori.

Jack sat up. The landslide had rumbled to an uneasy stop, but smoke and ash still swelled up from the crater's base like a poisonous mushroom.

'Your plan worked a treat!' Benkei declared, slapping Saburo on the back.

'A little too well ...' coughed Jack, clearing his lungs and struggling to his feet.

Saburo offered him a hand and an apologetic smile. 'I didn't plan such a large landslide.'

'You idiot! You almost killed us all!' Miyuki yelled, charging over and knuckle-punching a nerve in his arm.

'Ow!' cried Saburo.

'I thought dodging a landslide would have been child's play for a ninja,' remarked Akiko as Saburo tenderly rubbed his dead arm.

'And you weren't worried?' shot back Miyuki.

Akiko appeared about to deny this, then stopped herself. Instead she offered Miyuki a conciliatory bow of the head and admitted, 'To be honest, I was terrified!'

Then she knuckle-punched Saburo's other bicep.

'Ow!' groaned Saburo, now rubbing both his arms. 'Is that all the thanks I get for saving the day?'

'YES!' said Akiko and Miyuki together.

'At least the two of you can agree on something,' remarked Yori, suppressing a grin.

Jack looked over at the flock of dazed villagers. Almost unable to believe their miraculous escape, they fell to their knees and bowed as one to Jack and his friends.

'We thank the Lord for delivering us from evil and sending us his angels of mercy,' praised one of the farmers, making the sign of the cross.

'Amen,' chanted the villagers in unison.

As they bowed again, expressing their gratitude both to God and their samurai saviours, Jack noticed the black ash around them shifting. Then the ground beneath their feet started to tremble.

48.

A Minor One 'Saburo ... what have you started!' accused Akiko, peering into the crater's depths.

Below, the steam and dust had settled and they saw that Saburo's landslide had blocked the main vents of the Great Shout jigoku. With no way of escape, the super-heated waters snaked through the earth, seeking out other routes. The back pressure rapidly building, the crater floor began to fracture along its fault lines before their very eyes ...

'RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!' shouted Jack as Unzen-dake awoke from its grumbling slumber.

Sweeping Rimika into his arms again, Jack and his friends herded the villagers in a frantic race down the mountainside. Saburo carried one of the elderly men on his back. Yori had given his staff to another. Akiko and Miyuki worked together, shouldering a lame woman between them. The rest of the villagers, half-starved as they were, proved to be hardier than they looked. With the sure-footedness of mountain goats, they scrambled down the rocky slope.

'This way!' cried Benkei as the volcano rumbled and loose shale and stones clattered past, seemingly determined to beat them in their flight. Their pace slowed dangerously as they wound a circuitous path through the gullies and ridges of old lava flows. Far below in the valley, the haven of the village seemed to be getting no closer.

All of a sudden a huge explosion shook the ground. The earth pitched like the deck of a storm-tossed ship and all of them were thrown off their feet. Knees and hands were scraped bloody and raw as they tumbled out of control down the slope. Clutching Rimika tightly to his chest, Jack skidded to a painful stop.

'Are you all right?' he asked her, brushing ash from her hair.

She nodded brightly. 'I'm safe in your arms.'

Jack only wished that was really true. He staggered onward with the others. The volcano was belching out an apocalyptic pall of smoke and ash. The sky darkened, a sinister twilight smothering the land as the sun was eclipsed behind the billowing inky cloud. The heavens began to hail shards of rock, and ash fell like black snow on to the ripped earth.

Jack followed Benkei and the others into the treeline. The pine trees swayed wildly, as if trying to tear their roots from the earth and run free. Splintering cracks and woody groans filled the ashen air in the forest's angry protest against its inevitable devastation. A huge tree trunk split apart and toppled into their path, almost flattening Benkei. He jumped aside with a startled yelp. Then, recovering, he beckoned the villagers onwards, guiding them past obstacles and through the perilous forest, his multicoloured robe a beacon in the dim light.

Jack levelled with Saburo, who was puffing and wheezing from the old man he bore on his back.

'You don't seem ... scared ... by the eruption,' he was gasping to his passenger.

The old man nonchalantly shook his head. 'I've seen far worse in my time.'

'Really? Ever been ... this close to one?'

'No, neither do I want to be. So stop your yabbering and get moving!' he scolded, cajoling Saburo with an impatient pat on the head as if he were a mule.

Saburo's indignant face turned purple at the farmer's lack of respect towards a member of the samurai class, but fear for their lives outweighed his desire to correct him. Jack would have laughed at the exchange, if he too wasn't terrified out of his wits. Having been caught in an eruption once before, he'd vowed not to repeat the experience. The volcano was a foe that could never be beaten, only survived.

And, as the mountain roared again, their very lives hung in the balance.

The ground trembled, a shock wave rippling through the earth and scattering the villagers like leaves. Jack forced himself to keep moving. The further away from the volcano they were, the better their chances. Yori urged everyone on, offering words of encouragement even when terror held him in its icy grip. Akiko and Miyuki staggered through the gloomy forest, still bearing the lame woman between them. As they fled, Jack lost all track of time. He was just running, blindly following Benkei and carrying Rimika like the most precious jewel in his arms. Then all of a sudden they were out of the forest and dashing across the plateau of paddy fields.

Exhausted, scratched from rock, filthy with ash, they hobbled into the village. The volcano continued to grumble, smoke still pouring from its devil-fanged cone of a mouth. But fortunately only steam, not lava, flowed from the gashes in its sides and the tremors had all but died down.

'Told you, the eruption was a minor one,' said the old man as Saburo dropped to his knees in the road.

'Get yourself a new horse!' replied Saburo through gritted teeth.

'Thanks for the ride,' the man said with a toothless grin. Dismounting, he stretched his legs and tottered off.

Saburo's jaw fell open, incredulous, as he watched the farmer go, perfectly able to walk.

'Now there's a wily old trickster!' remarked Benkei with admiration. 'I could learn a thing or two from him.'

The villagers gathered together and Jack returned Rimika to her mother.

'How can we ever thank you?' said Takumi, bowing his head deep with respect.

'Seeing Rimika safe is thanks enough,' replied Jack humbly.

Rimika beamed at him.

'But there must be something more we can do?' insisted Maiko, ruffling her daughter's hair.

'How about a bath?' suggested Akiko, glancing down at her soot-stained kimono.

Takumi and Maiko lowered their gaze, embarrassed.

'Unfortunately, daimyo Matsukura's samurai destroyed the only tub in the village,' Takumi apologized. 'But there is a natural hot spring further along the road, near where a stream crosses. I trust that will do.'

'Sounds perfect,' said Akiko, not wishing the villagers to feel ashamed of their lack of means.

'Perhaps a meal before you leave?' Maiko offered graciously.

Jack glanced around at their devastated village with its ramshackle homes and empty rice barn. Whatever food they had left, he realized, would be their last. And these villagers were willing to give everything they had by way of thanks. This only reaffirmed to him that the risk they'd taken had been worth it to save such good people.

'Just pray for my safe return home,' said Jack.

'We will. We certainly will,' replied Takumi, putting his hands together.

'And with daimyo Matsukura dead,' added Akiko, 'you should be more free to do so.'

The joy in Takumi's face died and he gravely shook his head. 'I'm afraid the daimyo's son and heir is equally cruel.' He gave a heavy sigh at the burden they bore. 'But we have time to gather what little we have and start afresh in a more Christian-friendly province.'

Jack wished them well, but wondered what real chance they had, given that the movement of farmers was tightly controlled and the Shogun had outlawed Christianity throughout Japan.

'We should go,' said Miyuki, looking up at the sun, now a fiery eye in the smoke-laden sky. 'We want to be as far from here as possible by sunset.'

Collecting her horse from the barn, Akiko and Jack followed the others out of the village. As they headed down the road, Jack took a final glance back. The villagers were already on their knees, praying. Behind, looming over them like a belligerent god, the volcano rumbled away.

'Did we really save them?' asked Jack, thinking of the twin threats posed by the daimyo's son and the Shogun.

Yori nodded sagely. 'None may know what tomorrow brings, so each day is a gift to be treasured. And you've given them that gift.'