The First Book of Samuel, SAREJESS [ebook voice reader TXT] 📗

haired woman mumbled some thing under her breath about "arrogant foreigners". In the meanwhile, Samuel went to the room reserved for him and began stripping off his clothing. The sound of water boiling soon drew him from the room to the enclosure where the bath tub stood. He lowered himself into the hot water, the heat relaxing him, the tension in his neck subsiding, as he lay in the tub.

Setting off for the forbidden palace, he said a prayer that he find “grace in the eyes of men,” as the prophet Jeremiah had once told the people of Israel to do when faced with oppression from men. "Call unto me and I will shew thee great and mighty things which thou knewest not" the old scripture went.

Arriving at the gate of the palace he handed the silk bag to the gatekeeper. This time the man smiled and said "soon you get the answer you want?" "I think so" said Samuel, not really wanting to go into things with this minor official. It was an hour before he was called. He followed the guards as they lead him down the now familiar chambers of the palace.

While he waited, he once more went over things in his mind. With him, he had the expected gifts which he would have to present as a thanks offering to the wise emperor Wu. He did not have long to wait. Entering the imperial presence once more, he took up his position with his head bowed to the ground, on his knees on the back of his hands. He carried the gifts of rice and Sake and a folded length of silk, which had been made in the workshop of the compound. "Ah it is our strange guest" said the voice of the imperial presence. "I have an answer for you" said the emperor, "one that I am sure you will like. The order for your women has been stopped." Samuel waited. His heart beating rapidly he knew there would be a caveat on this. "However in their place, you will place at our disposal every year one hundred fighting men from your tribe, also you will deliver to our warehouses 50 bags of rice and 25 lengths of silk as a tax for this, our imperial benevolence" said the voice. "Is this acceptable to you?" Samuel had been doing some quick calculations and had discovered that although it was a lot to ask, it was not an unreasonable price to pay for the release of the women. "Oh great Emperor may you live forever! This is a most wise choice you have made. I thank you for your benevolence and ask that you accept these few offerings as a sign of the good faith of my people." A slender, well manicured hand reached out from behind the
the silk screen and laid a parchment on the cushion in front of Samuel. At the same time, a court official hurried to Samuel's side and withdrew the gifts while the parchment with the imperial seal was placed in his hands. With that the interview was over. Samuel withdrew, still on his knees as custom demanded. Once outside the royal chamber, he broke into a sweat. “How differently it could have gone!” he thought as he hurriedly left the palace. A gong calling the faithful to the temple could be heard. Although the capital held many delights, Samuel no longer held interest in them. His one desire was to leave the city and to return to his little house in the compound, to discuss with the elders the decision the emperor had given and to set in motion those things which needed to be done to satisfy the emperor. For Samuel well knew that should the taxes not be paid, the full might of the mighty emperor Wu would fall on him and his followers. He stopped briefly at a shop of a dumpling seller and bought himself a bowl of rice and dumplings. Once he had completed his meal, he once more set off for the house where the old widow lived and collected his things, paid her and left.
The journey home was a happy one for him for as he traveled through the country side he saw how the wise emperor had set up various improvements in agriculture which helped soil to give much more rice then previously possible. He drew great pleasure from stopping at some village at the end of the day and eating with the common men of the great emperor of China. Here he grew to love the simple people of China. Each day there was some thing new to learn. He carried a small gift of rice to sustain him as he left the village at dawn and traveled through the heat of the day to the next village. The people were friendly as he passed the peasant farmers planting and harvesting rice they would call out to hi and to have a safe trip and sometimes they invited him to join them in a glass of sake. Very seldom were these requests refused by Samuel. Finally as the year 221AD drew to a close Samuel drew closer to his home. He grew excited at the prospect of seeing the group of people with whom he had crossed the great desert. A longing sprang up in his heart to be home and even though the journey was a pleasant one, he longed for the company of his fellow believers.

301 AD conversations with a Chinese woman
The stranger had arrived at midday. He had asked for one of the elder men of the village but was told that the man had died some three seasons back, in the year of the bountiful harvest. The stranger had been disappointed when Lin Chow had told him. "Oh that is sad news" said the man, as he took a seat on a boulder. "I don’t know what you want with my grandfather" said Lin Chow. "He was also a stranger once in the empire of the rising sun" said Lin Chow. "I knew him once long ago" said the stranger. "He was kind to me and I wanted to thank him" said Samuel. "That must have been before I was born" said the young woman whose complexion betrayed her mixed origin, for she was half Hebrew and half Chinese.
A chicken picked at the root of an old tree stump near Samuel’s feet. The dusty road leading to the village seemed deserted except for a few villagers who made their way out of the forest near the bottom of the vast valley.

"Tell me do the men of the village still do additional military service for the empire" asked Samuel? "Oh no those days are long past now. We give just what the empire and the overlord desires" said Lin Chow. "And do the woman of the village do service in the Tea-house" asked Samuel? "My, what a strange question?" said the young woman with a laugh, “How other wise would it be?” Was the evidence of her mother’s service in the tea house not before him in the form of Lin Chow?]

“So many questions stranger, you have been in the sun too long. Rest awhile and we will care for you” said the young woman, taking Samuel by the hand and leading him towards the house made of wood. A gong chimed nearby. Samuel turned and looked towards the sound as if surprised to see the presence of the temple of Buddha in the village. “Could so much have happened in such a brief period of time? Were there none of the Hebrews who came to the village alive or had all perished, that now none remained that there children had gone astray?” wondered Samuel. But now was not the time to ask questions. He needed to rest. The time he had spent in Asia had changed him much. He had for many years been in the kingdom of Korea. There he had learned much of the way of life of the people and now having a longing to be among his own he had returned to China only to find that they had so much changed that there was hardly a memory of their ever having been in the land of the rising sun.
It seemed to Samuel that every thing he had fought for, worked so hard for over the last ninety years had come to nothing.
Lin Chow led Samuel up the worn wooden stairs into the house under the gaze of the other villagers who were returning to the village for their midday meal. Seating himself on the floor and folding his legs under him in the traditional way of Asians, Samuel watched the young woman as she began to prepare a dish of chicken dumplings over an open fire in the center of the room. The atmosphere of the place had much changed. The smells of China now pervaded the place; before in the early years Samuel remembered this very house which he along with other members of the community had built, had been a place of learning, a place where the Torah had been studied. Now it was completely changed. It was a Chinese home of the great grand daughter of the rabbi herself. Chinese seldom thought back to the early days it was in fact a miracle that Samuel had come across this young woman for she was the only one who had any knowledge of that part of the village history for she had tended her old grandfather who had been the last full blooded Jew to inhabit the village. Now on an afternoon in the year 301AD he sat enjoying a meal with the daughter of the house. He thought back to the time when he had led a group of like minded people across the vast Gobi desert, how in the first years they had fought nature and the authorities to build a life for themselves in this fair land only to find that 90 years later their dream had been swallowed up much as the overlord had originally intended. In the meantime, Samuel had left the group to visit some of the nearby countries in the region in Korea. He had studied under many experienced masters the art of fighting; learning to kick high and to deliver a devastating blow. He in turn had truly become a master of this art and this training was to stand him in good stead in the long ages he would live through. Thus although despondent at the turn of events in China he knew from experience that life moved on, things changed. Of the thousands of people he had met in his time none brought him more pleasure then this daughter of the last remaining Jew in China. For once the meal was over she arranged a hot bath into which Samuel sunk his body, the hot water drawing off the weariness of the long journey upon which he had embarked. In years to come he would remember this afternoon and look upon it with a certain pleasure for once he had bathed and dressed he retired to a room set aside for guests. Here he slept awhile, a dreamless sleep, a sleep which his tired body and mind needed and in the cool of the evening, Lin Chow came to him.


CHAPTER FIVE
301 AD a disastrous sea voyage
The hurricane overtook the small sailing vessel as it made its way across the China Sea. The crew worked hard to save the vessel and their lives. It came to a point when the master gave the order that the goods were to be thrown over board to lighten the vessel. An enormous wave crashed over the deck carrying away one of the crew