Still, they would be commands coming in Ptolemy's name, and the universal experience of officers serving under the military despots of those ancient days showed that, rather than to take the responsibility of directly disobeying a royal order once received, it was safer to avoid receiving it by murdering the messengers.
Achillas therefore directed the officers to be seized and slain.

They were accordingly taken off and speared by the soldiers, and then the bodies were borne away.

The soldiers, however, it was found, had not done their work effectually.

There was no interest for them in such a cold-blooded assassination, and perhaps something like a sentiment of compassion restrained their hands.

At any rate, though both the men were desperately wounded, one only died.