Amid the lower ranks of officials, one witness fought back fear and nausea. He hated watching executions, but his attendance at this one was mandatory, along with that of everyone else who had dealings with Nagasaki’s foreign community. The bakufu—the military dictatorship that ruled Japan—wanted to remind them all of what would happen to anyone who violated the nation’s harsh antitreason laws, to warn them against any allegiance with the foreigners, no matter how innocent, or any act of disloyalty toward the government. Here, in the only place where foreigners were allowed in Japan, an ambitious man might gather powerful allies and launch a rebellion against the Tokugawa regime. To prevent this, the bakufu enforced the laws more rigorously than anywhere else in the country, devoting immense effort to identifying and punishing traitors. Even a minor infraction would inevitably lead to death.

“Why are you doing this?” the prisoner pleaded. “I beg you, have mercy!”

No one answered. The march continued relentlessly, until at last the members of the procession gathered on a plateau overlooking the city and harbor. None spoke, but the witness sensed their emotions, hovering in the moist air like a malignant cloud: fear; excitement; disgust. He watched, terrified and appalled, as the army bore the captive into the center of the plateau.

There waited four grim, muscular men with cropped hair, wearing ragged kimonos. One, hammer in hand, stood beside a newly erected frame composed of two wooden pillars joined by a crossbeam. Two others seized the prisoner’s arms and forced him to his knees beside the man holding a sword; the sharp blade gleamed in the dawn light. These were eta, outcasts who served as executioners, and they were ready to cut off the prisoner’s head and mount it on the frame as a warning to would-be criminals.

“No!” the prisoner screamed. “Please!” Straining away from his captors, he entreated the audience. “I’ve committed no crimes. I haven’t done anything to deserve this!”

The witness longed to clap his hands over his ears and shut out the screams, to close his eyes against the sight of the panic-stricken samurai whose courage had fled before this ultimate disgrace, to deny his terrible sense of identification with the condemned prisoner.

Hoofbeats clattered as the governor of Nagasaki urged his horse forward. “The prisoner, Yoshidō Ganzaemon, is guilty of treason,” he announced in grave, ceremonial tones.

“Treason?” The samurai ceased struggling, his face blank with shock. “I’m not a traitor. I’ve served the shōgun well all my life.” His voice rose in disbelief. “I’m the hardest-working officer in the harbor patrol. I always volunteer for extra duty. I risk my life in rough weather. I practice the martial arts so that I can someday bring my lord glory on the battlefield. I’ve never acted against the shōgun or his regime. Whoever says so is lying!”