Caesar's curiosity. Glancing
round the circle of courtiers, and casting a grateful look at his
priestly patron, he said:

"It would be asking too much of your Roman table-companions that they
should know a philosopher. You may spare yourself the question, Caesar.
I came here that you might make my acquaintance. My name is Philippus,
and I am son to Heron, the gem-cutter."

"Her brother!" screamed Caracalla, as he rushed at him, and thrusting
his hand into the neck of the sick youth's chiton--who already could
scarcely stand upon his feet--he shook him violently, crying, with a
scoffing look at the high-priest:

"And is this the ornament of the Museum, the free-thinker, the profound
skeptic Philippus?"

He stopped suddenly, and his eyes flashed as if a new light had burst
upon him; he dropped his hand from the prisoner's robe, and bending his
head close to the other, he whispered in his ear, "You have come from
Melissa?"

"Not from her," the other answered quickly, the flush deepening on his
face, "but in the name of that most unhappy, most pitiable maiden, and
as the representative of her noble Macedonian house, which you would
defile with shame and infamy; in the name of the inhabitants of this
city, whom you despoil and tread under foot; in the interests of the
whole world, which you disgrace!"

Trembling with fury Caracalla broke in:

"Who would choose you for their ambassador, miserable wretch?"

To which the philosopher replied with haughty calm:

"Think not so lightly of one who looks forward with longing to that of
which you have an abject fear."

"Of death, do you mean?" asked Caracalla, sneering, for his wrath had
given place to astonishment.

And Philip answered: "Yes, Death--with whom I have sworn friendship,
and who should be ten times blessed to me if he would but atone for my
clumsiness and rid the world of such a monster!"

The emperor, still spell-bound by the unheard-of audacity of the youth
before him, now felt moved to keep step with the philosopher, whom few
could equal in sharpness of wit; and, controlling the raging fury of his
blood, he cried, in a tone of superiority:

"So that is the boasted logic of the Museum? Death is your dearest
desire, and yet you would give it to your enemy?"

"Quite right," replied Philip, his lip curling with scorn. "For there
is something which to the philosopher stands higher than logic. It is a
stranger to you, but you know it perhaps by name--it i