Velasco writes months after the papal audience that the failed embassy returned to Seville and then across the Atlantic to Veracruz, a voyage which took them three months and on which they encountered two storms. The envoys have all abandoned their Christian faith, but Yozo continues to come to Mass, and Velasco believes that his characteristic loyalty may extend to his religion.

As he makes arrangements for the envoys to return to Japan, while he goes to Manila to work in the monastery there, Velasco says that he experiences an unaccustomed sense of peace. He has been fanatical in his desire to convert the Japanese, but now his association with Japan is over. He describes how he first came to Japan in 1603, having encountered Japanese people and learned their language in Manila. As he is considering his past and his future, the samurai Hasekura comes to tell him that Tanaka has killed himself.

Although suicide is a mortal sin in the eyes of the church, Velasco prays over the body of Tanaka and will not allow any Buddhist images to be placed beside him. He arranges for Tanaka to be buried in a graveyard for Indigenous people.

Returning through the Mexican desert, Hasekura and Nishi meet the former monk again. They confess that they have now become Christians themselves, though their conversion was not sincere, and ask how he can worship such a wretched figure as the man on the cross whose image is everywhere in Mexico. The former monk replies that he worships Christ because Christ “knew all there was to know about the sorrows of this world.” His wretched appearance bears witness to this knowledge. Jesus was nothing like the pope, who lives in a golden palace. He was more like the native people of Mexico, among whom the former monk lives.

When they reach Mexico City, the envoys are forbidden to enter and ordered to proceed directly to Acapulco. The superior of the Franciscan Order there sends them food and wine, together with news from Japan. The persecution of Christians there has grown even more extreme, with Christians being imprisoned and sent into exile.