The assassins could easily have run round the wall to finish off the wounded king, but instead of this they fled up to the ridge of Parnassus as though they had completed their task, and in such haste that one of them, not being able to keep up with them, retarded their flight, and to prevent his being caught and turning informer against them, they killed their comrade. The king's friends ran to where his body lay, followed by the guards and slaves. They lifted him, still stunned by the blow and unconscious, but they found from the warmth of the body and the breath still remaining in the lungs, that he was still alive, but they had little or no hope of his recovery. Some of the guards followed in the track of the assassins and climbed as far as the top of Parnassus, but their labour was in vain and they returned from their fruitless search. The Macedonians had set about the crime with as much deliberation as daring; they abandoned it with as much haste as cowardice. The next day the king had recovered consciousness and was carried down to the ship. They first made for Corinth, then the ships were drawn across the neck of the Isthmus and the voyage was continued to Aegina. Here so much secrecy was observed regarding his progress towards recovery, none being admitted to his room, that a report of his death travelled through Asia. Even Attalus believed it, somewhat more readily indeed than was consistent with harmony between the brothers, for he talked to his brother's wife and to the commandant of the citadel as if he were the undoubted heir to the crown. Eumenes did not forget this, and though he had determined to dissemble his resentment and preserve silence, he could not restrain himself the first time they met from reproaching him for his premature haste in wooing his wife. The rumour of his death even reached Rome.