Meanwhile the hapless monks were startled from their meal by the abrupt entrance of a Norman knight, Gilbert de Clare, with whom they had made interest, and who now rushed in shouting to them: "Ye wretched drivellers! Can ye choose no better time for guzzling than this when the King is here, yea, in your very church?" Instantly every monk sprang to his feet, and the whole community made a rush for the church. But it was too late. William was already well on his way out of Ely, and the unhappy monks had to run three miles before they caught up to him at Witchford. There they did at last succeed in impetrating his pardon, but he laid upon them a fine of no less than 700 marks of silver,[212] to meet which almost all the ornaments of the church had to be melted down. The ingots were minted into coin in the abbey itself; but the moneyers employed proved fraudulent, and the royal officers at Cambridge, to whom the cash was paid, reported it deficient in weight. This gave William an excuse for laying on a further fine of 300 marks, so that altogether no less than the equivalent of L20,000 was wrung by him out of the Brotherhood. [Footnote 212: A mark of silver was worth 13_s._ 4_d._; a mark of gold was 100 shillings. A labourer's wage was at this date 1_d._ per day, so that these sums must be multiplied thirty-fold to get their equivalent value at the present day.] Yet the monks were not mistaken in thus casting in their lot with the Normans, for though William imposed these heavy fines upon them, though he heaped vexatious indignities upon them, though he inflicted shocking mutilations on their adherents (not on themselves, for he was careful to spare the monks in this respect), though he compelled them to maintain a foreign garrison of forty French knights at their very doors, yet in spite of all this the Abbey, with its seventy monks, prospered under his iron rule. The strange condition of the house at this juncture is vividly recorded for us by a picture, still preserved in the Bishop's palace at Ely and known as the "Tabula Eliensis." This "tabula" is a painting of no artistic merit, dating probably from the reign of Henry the Seventh, but copied from an older one which has perished. It is divided into forty squares, and in each of these appears a knight and a monk, the names of both being given fully and distinctly. The knight is helmeted and holds his drawn sword in his right hand, while between him and his neighbour, the cowled monk, hangs his shield emblazoned with his arms. All indicate how the knights and monks, when thus forced to dwell in close contact, became friendly together as time went by.