The traitorous monks made a loud lamentation and outcry, but Thurstan could neither cry nor speak, and he sate with his face buried in his hands; while the prior ordered the crowd to withdraw, and then barred the door after them. As he returned from the door to his seat, the prior said, "Brethren, our last hope is gone!" And every monk then present, save only three, repeated the words, "Our last hope is gone!"
"The great captain hath perished," said the chamberlain: "he will bring us no corn and wine! There is no help for us except only in tendering our submission to _King_ William, and in showing him how to get through the fens and fall upon the _rebel_ people in the Camp of Refuge, who have consumed our substance and brought us to these straits!"
Many voices said in a breath that there was no other chance of escaping famine or slaughter.
This roused the Saxon-hearted Lord Abbat, who had almost begun to weep in tenderness for brave Hereward's death; and, striking the table until the hall rang again, he up and said, "Let me rather die the death of the wicked than have part in, or permit, so much base treachery! Let me die ten times over rather than be false to my country! Let me die a hundred deaths, or let me live in torture, rather than betray the noblest of the nobles of England that be in the Camp of Refuge; and the venerable archbishop and bishops, abbats and priors that have so long found a refuge in this house--a house ever famed for its hospitality. Let me, I say...."
Here the prior, with great boldness and insolence, interrupted the Lord Abbat, and said with a sneer, "The few servants of the church that now be in this house shall be looked to in our compact with the Normans; but for the fighting-lords that be in the Camp of Refuge, let them look to themselves! They have arms and may use them, or by laying down their arms they may hope to be admitted to quarter and to the _King's_ peace; or ... or they may save their lives by timeous flight ... they may get them back into Scotland or to their own countries from which they came, for our great sorrow, to devour our substance and bring down destruction upon our house. We, the monks of Ely, owe them nothing!"
"Liar that thou art," said Thurstan, "we owe them years of liberty and the happy hope of being for ever free of Norman bondage and oppression. If ye bring the spoilers among us, ye will soon find what we have owed to these valorous lords and knights! We owe to them and to their fathers much of the treasure which is gone and much of the land which remains to this monastery: we owe to them the love and good faith which all true Englishmen owe to one another; and in liberal minds this debt of affection only grows the stronger in adverse seasons. We are pledged to these lords and knights by every pledge that can have weight and value between man and man!"