By a strong effort and great self-command, the young queen retained her calmness and preserved her grace and gayety.  And even when the banquet had closed and the guests had retired, and the king again asked her to prefer her petition, she did not venture to prefer that which was nearest her heart.  His favour was too uncertain and his favourite too powerful.  She only besought his presence again as a guest, and again his favourite was included in the invitation.

The Jews were still lying low before their God.  When the feast in the palace was broken up, and the gates were shut, the high walls cast their shadows upon the moat.  The sentinels still moved with measured tread.  The lights gradually disappeared, except those that told of some one watching over the sick or dying, or some chance-beam betraying a late carousal.  In the palace, the soft footfall of the attendants in the antechambers, could not disturb the slumbers of the monarch, while strains of sweetest music were ready to lull him to repose, as warder and sentinel kept watch over his safety.  But still “that night the king could not sleep;” and wakeful, restless, solitary, he commanded his attendants to bring him the archives of his kingdom, and read to him the records of his reign.  Strange request!  How few monarchs would care thus to review the past, and force themselves to the judgment awaiting them from a higher tribunal and from future ages!

It was not chance which held the eyes of the king waking.  It was not chance which drew his attention to the conspiracy defeated by Mordecai, and to the investigation of the treatment he had received for so high a service.  No reward, no honour had been conferred upon one who had saved the life of the sovereign.  A strange forgetfulness or neglect of the prime minister of the realm!  While Ahasuerus was devising some mode of requiting the obligation due to one who had rendered the state important service, he called for a counsellor, and was told that Haman was without, in the court.

Haman left the banquet of Esther in all the assurance of royal favour.  He had attained to honours which distinguished him above all the subjects of the Persian empire.  He had received distinctions which elevated him above even the princes and nobles of the kingdom; and in his pomp and power he passed, with his train of attendants, menials, flatterers, and followers, through the gates of the royal palace, “the observed of all observers;” and as he came into the thronged thoroughfare that led from the royal abode, all did him homage and showed him reverence—­save one.

Mordecai, the Jew, still sat at the king’s gate—­probably, still wrapped in sackcloth.  His eye met that of Haman, but it quailed not.  It was a stern, reproving glance!  And while all others did lowliest obeisance, Mordecai neither bowed nor uncovered his head.