Jack snatched up his weapon and, ignoring Akiko’s cries for calm, ran past her on to the bridge. Hearing Yamato close on his heels, Jack turned on the spot bringing his own bokken slicing through the air at Yamato’s approaching head. Also aiming for Jack’s head, Yamato collided with Jack’s bokken, and the blades juddered to a halt inches from one another’s throats.

‘Draw!’ shouted Jiro in delight.

At that very moment, Taka-san appeared and the two fighters lowered their bokken.

‘Jack-kun!’ he called, approaching the three of them. ‘Father Lucius requests your attendance. Urgently.’

Jack knew that it could only mean one thing.

He bowed to Yamato and Akiko then hurried after Taka-san.

Entering Father Lucius’s room, Jack was struck by an overpowering stench of vomit, stale sweat and urine. It reeked of mortality.

A guttering candle feebly lit the gloom. From the far corner, he could hear the priest’s laboured breathing.

‘Father Lucius?’

Jack edged closer to the shadowy figure lying supine on the futon. His foot came into contact with something in the darkness and looking down he saw a small bucket, brimming with vomit. Jack retched but forced himself forward, bending over the bed.

The candlelight spluttered then flared and Jack was confronted with the hollow, shrivelled face of Father Lucius.

The priest’s skin was a pallid blue and moist with oily sweat. His hair, thin and streaked with grey, was plastered in limp strands over his sunken cheeks. Specks of blood mottled his cracked lips and there were now permanent black shadows under his eyes.

‘Father Lucius?’ said Jack, almost hoping the priest was already dead and no longer suffering such torment.

‘Jack?’ croaked Father Lucius, his pale tongue running the length of his cracked lips.

‘Yes, Father?’

‘I must ask for your forgiveness…’

‘For what?’

‘I’m sorry, Jack… son of a heretic though you are… you have spirit…’

He spoke in short bursts, taking harsh wheezing breaths in between each utterance. Jack listened, saddened by the pitiful state of the priest. He was Jack’s last link to the far side of the world and, despite the constant preaching, he had come to respect the man. The priest too had seemingly warmed to him, even if he still refused to be converted.

‘I misjudged you… I enjoyed our lessons… I wish I could have saved you…’

‘Don’t worry about me, Father,’ consoled Jack, ‘my own God will look after me. Just as yours will.’

Father Lucius let out a small sobbing moan.

‘I’m sorry… I had to tell them… it was my duty…’ he cried feebly.

‘Tell who what?’ asked Jack.

‘Please understand… I didn’t know they’d kill for it… May God have mercy…’

‘What did you say?’ urged Jack.

The priest continued to move his lips, trying to say something else, but his words weren’t audible.

With the faintest of coughs, Father Lucius exhaled his last breath and died.