Doubtless, as she sat at the second banquet with the perfect self-control that they have who rely only on God, having used every device to fortify her position in the good graces of the capricious despot, her keen Hebrew insight weighed every light expression from his lips, although she knew a sword of doom hung over her jewel-crowned head, and yet she was calm and self-contained, as if she had no thought but to please him. Thus she led the king on until her power over him was at its height, and when he again offered her half the kingdom, she asked only for her life and the lives of her people. It must be that, although Haman was present at this banquet, he did not hear the request of Queen Esther, for he went forth from the feast “that day joyful and with a glad heart.” But when he saw Mordecai, in the king’s gate, and that he still refused to bow to him, “he was full of indignation.” So when he reached his own residence, he called his friends, and took counsel with them, and they advised him to cause a gallows to be built, eighty feet high, and to ask the next morning to have the king order Mordecai to be hanged thereon. But matters had taken a different turn at the palace. The king could not sleep that night. To pass the long, wakeful hours, he called for the reading of the records of the kingdom. As they were reading before the king, it was found written in the chronicles of the conspiracy of Bigthan and Terish, and that Mordecai had discovered the plot, and that nothing had been done for him as a reward. In the meantime the morning drew on, and Haman had entered the court of the palace to confer with the king about the hanging of Mordecai. We can well believe the mind of Ahasuerus was in a bad frame to talk about hanging the man who had saved his life by discovering the plot of the king’s chamberlains. But the king did not know what dark deeds were in the heart of Haman as he ordered him to be called. When Haman came into the presence of Ahasuerus, the king asked what should be done with the man whom he wanted to honor. The king’s favorite, who had just shared two private banquets with the king, was so inflated with himself that he did not think there was another man in the Persian empire in whom Ahasuerus would be so delighted to honor as himself, so he advised that the royal apparel be brought forth and the king’s horse and his crown, and given to one of the noble princes to array the man whom the king delighted to honor, and take him through the city on horseback with a proclamation, “This is the man whom the king delighteth to honor.” The command was given to Haman to thus honor Mordecai, which he did, with not very good grace, for, when he had finished his task, he “hasted to his house mourning, and having his head covered,” and related his mortification to his wife and friends.