Chapters Seven and Eight Summary

The province overlord, Toda Hiro-matsu, is Toranga's advisor. Hiro-matsu arrives as Yabu is working to complete the unloading of the ship. Hiro-matsu says that he plans to confiscate the goods and the ship in the name of Toranga but Yabu lies that he had planned to make a gift of the ship and was unloading the goods merely to keep them safe. Hiro-matsu orders that Yabu return with Blackthorne to Osaka aboard a galley piloted by a Portuguese named Vasco Rodriguez. Rodriguez takes Blackthorne aboard his ship which is a galley with rowers aboard. Rodriquez says that the Japanese will continue rowing far past what a normal man would endure and that they do it without complaint.

In chapter eight, there is a tremendous storm so that it seems the galley might sink. By now Blackthorne and...