When the operations reached this stage, William bethought him of the monks of Ely, and devised a scheme for enforcing their aid. Without warning he seized all the manors belonging to the abbey situated without the Isle; and the monks, unable to endure poverty and misery, and the famine that stared them in the face, resolved to put an end to the contest. With this view they sent to the Norman camp, and offered to show a passage, on condition of being left in possession of their property. Gilbert de Clare and William Warren having plighted their faith, and a treaty having been entered into, the monks fulfilled their promise, and the Normans prepared to penetrate into the Isle. Hereward and the Saxons, utterly unsuspicious of the treachery of the monks of Ely, were resting from their arduous exertions, when the sound of arms and the war-cry of Normans intimated that their foes were upon them. Completely taken by surprise, the Saxons were in no position to resist; and after a thousand of them had fallen, the camp was closely surrounded, and the majority were forced to lay down their arms. But better far would it have been for them to fight to the last. Many of those who submitted had their hands cut off and their eyes put out, and were then turned adrift as warnings against future revolts; others--and among them Archbishop Stigand and Bishop Eghelwin--were incarcerated and sentenced to imprisonment for life. But in the midst of carnage and disaster, Hereward was undaunted. When others laid down their arms, he still disdained the thought of yielding. Closely attended by a few zealous adherents, the Saxon chief broke from the assailants, retreated by paths into which the Normans did not venture to follow, passed from marsh to marsh, and overcoming every obstacle, made his way to the lowlands of Lincolnshire. It happened that the Normans had a station in the immediate neighbourhood of the place where Hereward and his friends found themselves after their hair-breadth escape. The temptation of a daring adventure was, under the circumstances, irresistible. Hereward made himself known to some fishermen, who were in the habit of every day taking fish to the garrison; and the fishermen, sympathizing with his views, were induced to lend their aid. Receiving Hereward and his companions into the boats, and concealing them under straw, the fishermen, next day, approached the station as usual; and the Normans, who were just sitting down to dinner, preparatory to riding forth on an expedition, were not in the least apprehensive of danger. Suddenly strange voices were heard, and Hereward and his men entering with their axes in their hands, rushed upon the Normans, and hewed down many before they knew what was taking place. Alarmed and despairing, the survivors fled, leaving their horses, which were ready saddled, a prey to the victors.