Never was battle waged more desperately.  The pirates knew that to be driven back meant to fall over a high embankment into water so shallow as to give little safety in a dive; capture implied crucifixion.  Their only hope was to hold their own while their boats took them off to the ships in small detachments.  The conflagration made the narrow battle-field as bright as day.  The soldiers were brave, and for new recruits moderately disciplined.  The pirates could hardly bear up under the crushing discharge of darts, and the steady onset of the maniples.  Up and down the contest raged, swaying to and fro like the waves of the sea.  Again and again the pirates were driven so near to the brink of the seawall that one or two would fall, dashed to instant death on the submerged rocks below.  Demetrius was everywhere at once, as it were, precisely when he was most needed, always exposing himself, always aggressive.  Even while he himself fought for dear life, Agias admired as never before the intelligently ordered puissance of his cousin.

The boats to and from the landing were pulled with frantic energy.  The ships had run in as close as possible, but they could not use their balistae,[168] for fear of striking down friend as well as foe.  As relays of pirates were carried away, the position of the remainder became the more desperate with their lessening numbers.  The boats came back for the last relay.  Demetrius drew the remnant of his men together, and charged so furiously that the whole cohort gave way, leaving the ground strewn with its own slain.  The pirates rushed madly aboard the boats, they sunk them to the gunwales; other fugitives clung to the oars.  At perilous risk of upsetting they thrust off, just as the rallied soldiers ran down to the landing-place.  Demetrius and Agias were the only ones standing on the embankment.  They had been the last to retire, and therefore the boats had filled without them.

  [168] Missile-throwing engines.

A great cry went up from the pirates.

“Save the captain!” and some boats began to back water, loaded as they were; but Demetrius motioned them back with his hand.

“Can you swim, boy!” he shouted to Agias, while both tore off their body-armour.  Their shields had already dropped.  Agias shook his head doubtfully.

“My arm is hurt,” he muttered.

“No matter!” and Demetrius seized his cousin under one armpit, and stepped down from the little landing-platform into the water just below.  A single powerful stroke sent the two out of reach of the swing of the sword of the nearest soldier.  The front files of the cohort had pressed down on to the landing in a dense mass, loath to let go its prey.

“Let fly, men!” cried Demetrius, as he swam, and javelins spat into the water about him.