“That would be your office,” interposed the philosopher.

“You shall see,” returned the emperor, laughing shrilly, “and the witlings of the Museum with you!  You use the knife; but hear the words of the master:  The teeth of wild beasts and their claws are weapons not to be despised.  Your father and brother, and she who taught me what to think of the virtue and faith of Alexandrian women, shall tell you this in Hades.  Soon shall every one of those follow you thither who forgot, even by a glance of the eye, that I was Caesar and a guest of this city!  After the next performance in the Circus the offenders shall tell you in the other world how I administer justice.  No later than the day after to-morrow, I imagine, you may meet there with several companions from the Museum.  There will be enough to clap applause at the disputations!” Caracalla ended his vehement speech with a jeering laugh, and looked round eagerly for applause from the “friends” for whose benefit his last words had been spoken; and it was offered so energetically as to drown the philosopher’s reply.

But Caracalla heard it, and when the noise subsided he asked his condemned victim: 

“What did you mean by your exclamation, ’And yet I would that death might spare me’?”

“In order, if that should come true,” returned the philosopher quickly, his voice trembling with indignation, “that I might be a witness of the grim mockery with which the all-requiting gods will destroy you, their defender.”

“The gods!” laughed the emperor.  “My respect for your logic grows less and less.  You, the skeptic, expect the deeds of a mortal man from the gods whose existence you deny!”

Then cried Philip, and his great eyes burning with hatred and indignation sought the emperor’s:  “Till this hour I was sure of nothing, and therefore uncertain of the existence of a god; but now I believe firmly that Nature, by whom everything is carried out according to everlasting, immutable laws, and who casts out and destroys anything that threatens to bring discord into the harmonious workings of all her parts, would of her own accord bring forth a god, if there be not one already, who should crush you, the destroyer of life and peace, in his all-powerful hand!”

Here his wild outburst of indignation was brought to an abrupt close, for a furious blow from Caracalla’s fist sent his enfeebled enemy staggering back against the wall near the window.

Mad with rage, Caracalla shrieked hoarsely

“To the beasts with him!  No, not to the beasts—­to the torture!  He and his sister!  The punishment I have bethought me of—­scum of the earth—­”

But the wild despair of the other, in whose breast hatred and fever burned with equal strength, now reached the highest pitch.  Like a hunted deer which stays its flight for a moment to find an outlet or to turn upon his pursuers, he gazed wildly round him, and before the emperor could finish his threat; leaning against the pillar of the window as if prepared to receive his death-blow, he interrupted Caracalla: