Omi releases the crew and orders the water pit filled in

Omi’s release of the surviving sailors is an act of controlled mercy, not an end to captivity. He brings the men out of the pit one by one, promises them a return to the world of men, and restores food and washing, but binds every concession to obedience. While the crew receives relief, Masijiro remains below; Omi gives him a dagger, then denies the request that he be allowed to commit seppuku on the beach and orders the pit filled. The scene makes release and abandonment parts of the same exercise of authority.

Terms of Release

Omi approaches the pit expecting the priest to lose his temper in public, an outburst that would give him grounds to have the man beaten. Instead, he makes the priest an intermediary. In deliberately simple language, Omi instructs him to tell the sailors that Lord Yabu has permitted them to live again among men, but warns that even the smallest breach of a rule will send two of them back into the pit. They must behave and obey every order. Omi makes the priest repeat the terms until he is satisfied that they have been understood, then has him pass the message down to the prisoners. Permission to emerge is thus framed from the outset as conditional, collective, and revocable.

The survivors climb out one at a time. All are frightened; some need help, and one cries out whenever anyone touches his injured arm. The priest reports that there should have been nine, but one has died and remains in the pit. The absence becomes a grim measure of what the survivors have endured: release comes not to the original group intact, but to those who have lived through the confinement.

Relief as Discipline

Omi orders Mura to burn the dead sailor’s body and keep the ashes with those of another European who had died. He then sends the surviving men back to their former house and specifies their provisions: plenty of vegetables and fish, barley soup, and fruit. They are to be washed as well. Omi tells the priest to explain that the food will continue if the men behave and obey. Each practical provision—shelter, nourishment, cleanliness—is also a reminder that Omi controls whether it lasts.

The men react with gratitude. Omi watches them closely and privately scorns their response: after only two days of deprivation, he thinks, they will accept even a pittance as abundance. His contempt exposes the calculation beneath the apparent generosity. The relief is real, but it is measured against the hunger and degradation that preceded it; Omi understands that the contrast itself makes the prisoners easier to govern. He orders Mura to make them bow properly before they are taken away, carrying the hierarchy of the encounter into the ritual of their return.

Masijiro Left Below

The sailors’ emergence does not end the scene. One of Omi’s samurai reminds him that Masijiro is still in the pit. Omi goes to the trapdoor and looks down; the samurai below immediately kneels and bows. Omi weighs the man’s past service against his future worth, takes the young samurai’s dagger from his sash, and drops it to Masijiro. Masijiro stares at the weapon in disbelief, then weeps and says he does not deserve the honor. The gesture offers him a means of dying by his own hand, but it does not restore him to the group or bring him out of the pit.

The young samurai asks that Masijiro be allowed to commit seppuku on the beach. Omi refuses: because Masijiro failed in the pit, he must remain there. Omi orders the villagers to fill it in and obliterate every trace of it, declaring that the Europeans have defiled the place. The requested change of setting—from the pit to the beach—would have made Masijiro’s death a permitted, visible act; Omi instead keeps him at the site of his failure and commands that the site itself disappear. The order’s full outcome is not narrated, but its intent is unmistakable: the pit is to be sealed, with Masijiro still inside.

Unequal Endings

The scene separates the fates of the prisoners with deliberate precision. The sailors are brought back into a controlled routine of housing, food, and washing; the missing man is reduced to ashes, and Masijiro is denied both release and the requested place of death. Omi’s authority reaches beyond deciding who may leave the pit: it governs the dead man’s remains, the survivors’ daily conditions, the samurai’s permitted death, and whether the place of confinement will remain visible.

That contrast gives the release its uneasy force. Omi offers the crew a return to the human world while retaining the power to revoke it, and his order to erase the pit closes off the physical trace of the punishment at the very moment its consequences persist. The scene’s movement from rationed relief to the command to bury Masijiro turns a rescue into an act of sorting: some captives are returned to conditional life, while another is left behind.