arrayed the new object of royal favour, Haman was placed at the head of
the proud war-horse, as he slowly bore the Jew through the multitude,
who thronged the street "to behold the man whom the king delighteth to
honour." We seem to see him--the proudest, the most arrogant of
men--with bowed head and averted eye, while Mordecai sits erect and
firm, in all the dignity of conscious worth.

As they slowly proceed through the thronged thoroughfare, obstructed by
crowds who came to gaze upon the pageant, many a significant sneer or
half-uttered jest would convey to Haman a sense of his degradation in
appearing as the groom of the despised Jew.

When the ceremonies were over, Mordecai again appeared at the gates of
the palace. Nothing in the apparent condition of the two was changed,
and the pageant may have seemed like a dream to Mordecai. He was only
anxious to know the proceedings and fate of Esther. Yet he must have
gathered hope for the future, as he still trusted and waited upon God.

But a dark cloud had fallen upon Haman. He foreboded his doom. He was
humbled, disappointed, degraded, disgraced. He had been paraded, before
the multitudes, the menial of the Jew. He had been forced to confer on
the man he hated the very honours his soul most coveted. "And Haman
hasted to his house mourning and having his head covered." And he told
his wife and the friends whom he had gathered to consult upon the fall
of the Jew, all that had befallen him. And clear, far-sighted, daring,
and unscrupulous, the wife who had counselled Mordecai's destruction,
foretold to Haman his own doom. "If Mordecai be of the Jews, before whom
thou hast begun to fall, thou shalt not prevail against him, but shall
surely fall before him."