Fortunately for himself, Terazawa, the secretly converted governor of Nagasaki, had been ordered to Corea, his place being supplied by a pagan brother of his, by whom an edict was issued threatening with death all who should embrace the foreign religion. At the same time he intimated to the Jesuits that he should allow no Japanese to enter their church in that city, nor themselves to traverse the country, as they had done, preaching and baptizing. He exhibited, however, every disposition to be as indulgent as possible in the execution of his orders; for though the prisoners were denied the privilege of hearing mass, they were permitted on their way to the place of execution to stop at the hermitage of St. Lazarus, where the Jesuits confessed to Father Rodriguez and another of their order, who met them there, and the Franciscans to each other. The place of execution was not that made use of for ordinary malefactors, but a hill bordering on the sea, one of those by which the city of Nagasaki is surrounded, and thenceforth known among the converts as the _Holy Mountain_, or _Mount of Martyrs_, to which name it gained still further claim by becoming the scene of many subsequent executions, continuing also, as long as the new religion lasted in Japan, a place of pilgrimage for its adherents. The prisoners were followed to this hill by an excited crowd, who, with tears and benedictions, besought their prayers. They were put to death by crucifixion, which, however, according to the Japanese method, is not a lingering punishment. The sufferer is bound, not nailed, to the cross, and his body is immediately pierced by a lance, or sometimes by two lances, thrust in at the sides, and coming out at the shoulders. The earth, wet with the martyr’s precious blood, was sedulously gathered up by the bystanders, and, in spite of the care with which the bodies were guarded, those of the three Jesuits were conveyed away to Macao; or, at least, bodies alleged to be the same were preserved in the churches there with great veneration as relics. Many miracles were alleged to have attended and followed the death of these martyrs, as to which duly authenticated affidavits may be found recorded in the great collection of Bolandus, affording grounds for the canonization of these twenty-six Japanese proto-martyrs, decreed, thirty years after, by Pope Urban VIII. CHAPTER XVIII _New Edict for the Deportation of the Jesuits—Its Partial Evasion—New Correspondence between the Philippines and Japan—Taikō-Sama’s Justification of his Recent Proceedings—New Destruction of Churches in Shimo—Taikō-Sama’s Death—His Preceding Efforts to secure his own Deification and the Succession of his Infant Son Hideyori—Regency—Iyeyasu, its Head, with the Title of Daifu-Sama—A. D. 1597-1599._