II. When the Molossians revolted, drove out their king Æakides, and invited back the children of Neoptolemus to the kingdom, the friends of Æakides were seized and put to death, but Androkleides and Angelus stole away Pyrrhus, who was still an infant and was being searched for by his enemies. They took with them some wet nurses for the child and some few other servants, but finding their flight impeded by them, they entrusted the child to Androkleion, Hippias, and Neander, strong and trusty young men, bidding them hurry on with what speed they might, and get to Megara, a fort belonging to the Macedonians, while they themselves, partly by entreaties and partly by fighting, managed to delay the pursuers till late in the evening. The enemy, after making their way through these men with some difficulty, pursued those who were carrying off Pyrrhus. The sun had now set, and the fugitives had begun to hope that they would soon be safe, when they were filled with despair by meeting with the river which runs past the fort, a wild torrent which they found it impossible to cross, as the stream was swollen with recent rains, and appeared all the more terrible because of the darkness. They decided that they never could convey the child and his nurses across by their own exertions, but observing several of the inhabitants standing upon the further bank they besought them to assist their passage, and they showed Pyrrhus to them, crying aloud and holding out their hands to entreat for help. The men could not hear what they said because of the roaring of the water, and much time was wasted in vain clamouring until one of the fugitives, perceiving this, wrote with the tongue of a brooch upon a piece of oak bark a few words explaining who the child was, and in what danger, wrapped the piece of bark round a stone to steady its flight, and threw it across. Some say that they fastened the bark to a javelin and so hurled it across. When the men on the further bank read the letter, and perceived in what imminent peril the fugitives were, they cut down some trees, formed a raft, and so crossed over. It chanced that the first man who crossed and received Pyrrhus into his arms was named Achilles: the rest of the fugitives were ferried over by his companions.