“Take care, my Lord King, lest never a boat come back from that errand. With their narrow flat-bottomed punts, cut out of a single log, and their leaping-poles, wherewith they fly over dikes of thirty feet in width,--they can ambuscade in those reed-beds and alder-beds, kill whom they will, and then flee away through the marsh like so many horse-flies. And if not, one trick have they left, which they never try save when driven into a corner; but from that, may all saints save us!” “What then?” “Firing the reeds.” “And destroying their own cover?” “True: therefore they will only do it in despair.” “Then to despair will I drive them, and try their worst. So these monks are as stout rebels as the earls?” “I only say what I saw. At the hall-table there dined each day maybe some fifty belted knights, with every one a monk next to him; and at the high table the abbot, and the three earls, and Hereward and his lady, and Thurkill Barn. And behind each knight, and each monk likewise, hung against the wall lance and shield, helmet and hauberk, sword and axe.” “To monk as well as knight?” “As I am a knight myself; and were as well used, too, for aught I saw. The monks took turns with the knights as sentries, and as foragers, too; and the knights themselves told me openly, the monks were as good men as they.” “As wicked, you mean,” groaned the chaplain. “O, accursed and bloodthirsty race, why does not the earth open and swallow you, with Korah, Dathan, and Abiram?” “They would not mind,” quoth Dade. “They are born and bred in the bottomless pit already. They would jump over, or flounder out, as they do to their own bogs every day.” “You speak irreverently, my friend,” quoth William. “Ask those who are in camp, and not me. As for whither they went, or how, the English were not likely to tell me. All I know is, that I saw fresh cattle come every few days, and fresh farms burnt, too, on the Norfolk side. There were farms burning last night only, between here and Cambridge. Ask your sentinels on the Rech-dike how that came about!” “I can answer that,” quoth a voice from the other end of the tent. “I was on the Rech-dike last night, close down to the fen,--worse luck and shame for me.” “Answer, then!” quoth William, with one of his horrible oaths, glad to have some one on whom he could turn his rage and disappointment. “There came seven men in a boat up from Ely yestereven, and five of them were monks; they came up from Burwell fen, and plundered and burnt Burwell town.” “And where were all you mighty men of war?” “Ten of us ran down to stop them, with Richard, Earl Osbern’s nephew, at their head. The villains got to the top of the Rech-dike, and made a stand, and before we could get to them--” “Thy men had run, of course.” “They were every one dead or wounded, save Richard; and he was fighting single-handed with an Englishman, while the other six stood around, and looked on.” “Then they fought fairly?” said William.