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