Between Nangasaki and Sima-bara lies a mountain, bald, bleak, and treeless, whitening beneath the masses of cinders with which it is every where covered, and with a thick and stifling smoke, which can be seen at a distance of several leagues, for ever rising from its summit. The soil that covers its steep ascent is every where soft and spongy, often burning and trembling beneath the footsteps; while so strong is the smell of sulphur which it continually exhales, that it is said no bird can live, or will even attempt to fly within breathing distance of its tainted atmosphere. Deep and unfathomable pools of boiling water lie hidden amid the clefts and fissures which split this gloomy mountain into peaks and precipices of various sizes; but one, deeper and more unfathomable than all the rest, instead of water, is filled with a mixture of sulphur and other volcanic matter, which seethe and bubble and boil within its dark abyss, emitting all the while so horrible a stench as to have gained it the title of the "Mouth of Hell." One drop alone of this fearful fluid is sufficient to produce an ulcer on the human flesh; and when Bugendono thought on the terrible nature of the chastisement he could thus inflict, and upon the fear and superstition with which the Japanese always regarded the sulphurous waters of Unsen, and the mysterious cavern in which they were produced, he felt that he could not have hit upon a more efficient or infallible means for the intimidation of the Christians, and the extirpation of their creed. At the very time when he came to this resolution, there chanced to be dispersed throughout Arima a band of faithful confessors, upon whom all his previously-invented tortures had been tried in vain; and for this reason the governor considered they would prove the fittest objects for his new experiment. Paul Uciborg was the chief, both for courage and virtue, of this troop of victims; and he had already witnessed the massacre of every member of his family, down even to the youngest of his children, who, in company with fifteen other Christians, had been thrown into the sea, after having first suffered every possible cruelty that could barbarously be inflicted upon them. "Which shall I begin with?" asked the executioner, as he approached the two youngest of Paul's children for the purpose of chopping off their fingers. "That is your affair, not mine," the old Christian answered bluntly, probably to conceal a softer feeling. "Cut off which, and as many, as you please." "And oh!" sighed little Ignatius, as, in the very spirit of the brave man his father, he watched his brother's fingers falling joint by joint beneath the knife of the executioner; "how beautiful your hand looks, my brother, thus mutilated for the sake of Jesus Christ, and how I long for my own turn to come!"