"What honor and dignity hath been done to Mordecai for this?" he asked, and his servants replied: "There is nothing done for him." "Who is in the court?" cried the king. Now Haman had come in to speak to the king to have Mordecai hanged. "Haman standeth in the court," said the king's servants, and the king said, "Let him come in." As Haman came in the king said, "What shall be done to the man that the king delighteth to honor?" Haman thought in his heart, "To whom would the king delight to do honor more than to myself," and then he replied, thinking all the time of himself. "For the man whom the king delighteth to honor let the royal apparel be brought which the king useth to wear, and the horse that the king rideth upon, and the crown royal which is set upon his head, and let this apparel and horse be delivered to the hand of one of the king's most noble princes, that they may array the men withal whom the king delighteth to honor, and bring him on horseback through the street of the city, and proclaim before him, 'Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delighteth to honor.'" Then the king said, "Make haste, and take the apparel and the horse as thou hast said, and do even so to Mordecai, the Jew, that sitteth at the king's gate; let nothing fail of all that thou hast spoken." Haman did as he was commanded, for he could do nothing else, and after it was all over Mordecai took his place again at the king's gate, but Haman hastened home mourning, and with his head covered. The next day he came to the queen's banquet with the king, and again the king said, "What is thy petition, Queen Esther? and it shall be granted thee; and what is thy request? and it shall be performed, even to the half of my kingdom." Then the queen made her request, saying, "If I have found favor in thy sight, O king, and if it please the king, let my life be given me at my petition, and my people at my request; for we are sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish. But if we had been sold for bondmen and bondwomen I had held my tongue, although the enemy could not countervail the king's damage." "Who is he, and where is he," cried the king, "That durst presume in his heart to do so?" Then Esther said, "The adversary and enemy is this wicked Haman." [Illustration: Haman denounced by the queen] Haman was overcome with fear at this, and the king was so angry that he rose up and went out into the palace garden. Haman stood up to make a plea for his life, and when the king came in he found Haman fallen at the queen's feet. One of the king's chamberlains who knew what the king wished told him of the gallows at Haman's house that had been made for Mordecai, and the king said, "Hang him thereon," and they did so, and the king's anger was pacified.