d feast, and at that to a third. But the night previous to the
last, the king could not sleep, and after tossing awhile on his troubled
couch, he called for the record of the court, and there found that
Mordecai had a short time before informed him through the queen, of an
attempt to assassinate him, and no reward been bestowed. The next day,
therefore, he made Haman perform the humiliating office of leading his
enemy in triumph through the streets, proclaiming before him: "This is
the man whom the king delighteth to honor." As he passed by the gallows
he had the day before erected for that very man, a shudder crept through
his frame, and the first omen of coming evil cast its shadow on his
spirit.

[Illustration: Herod's Cruel Massacre.]

The way was now clear to Esther, and so the next day, at the banquet, as
the king repeated his former offer, she, reclining on the couch, her
chiseled form and ravishing beauty inflaming the ardent monarch with
love and desire, said in pleading accents: "I ask, O king, for my life,
and that of my people. If we had all been sold as bondmen and bondwomen,
I had held my tongue, great as the evil would have been to thee." The
king started, as if stung by an adder, and with a brow dark as wrath,
and a voice that sent Haman to his feet, exclaimed: "Thy life! my queen?
Who is he? where is he that dare even harbor such a thought in his
heart? He who strikes at thy life, radiant creature, plants his
presumptuous blow on his monarch's bosom." "That man," said the lovely
pleader, "is the wicked Haman." Darting one look of vengeance on the
petrified favorite, he strode forth into the garden to control his
boiling passions. Haman saw at once that his only hope now was in moving
the sympathies of the queen in his behalf; and approaching her, he began
to plead most piteously for his life. In his agony he fell on the couch
where she lay, and while in this position the king returned. "What!" he
exclaimed, "will he violate the queen here in my own palace!" Nothing
more was said; no order was given. The look and voice of terrible wrath
in which this was said, were sufficient. The attendants simply spread a
cloth over Haman's face, and not a word was spoken. Those who came in,
when they saw the covered countenance, knew the import. It was the
sentence of death. The vaulting favorite himself dare not remove it--he
must die, and the quicker the agony is over, the better. In a few hours
he was swinging