While Thurstan, a sadder man than ever was Marius among the ruins of Carthage, was thus standing motionless, and communing with his own sad heart, the prior put to the vote the resolution which the chamberlain had moved; and the large majority of the house, some being deep in the plot, but more being carried by the dread of the Normans and the dread of famine, or being thrown into despair by the reported death of the Lord of Brunn, voted as the prior and chamberlain wished they would vote. The prior would fain have cast Thurstan into that subterranean dungeon into which Thurstan had once threatened,[237] but unluckily only threatened, to cast him; and he took much pains to show that it was needful to keep the deposed abbat in a place of great strength and security, to keep his imprisonment a secret, and to prevent all possibility of access to him or correspondence with him; but when he came to name the dark damp cold cells in the foundations of the abbey, wherein the rebellious son of an old East Anglian king had been immured, after having been deprived of his eyes, the monks testified compunction and disgust, and even sundry monks that had long been the most desperate of his faction spoke against the barbarity, and therefore the astute prior had not put it to the vote, and Thurstan was merely conveyed to the inner chamber of his own apartment; and this being done, and a strong guard being left in the abbat’s apartment, the monks all went to their long delayed dinner, and as soon as the dinner was over, the prior, the cellarer, the chamberlain, the sacrist, and a large attendance of monks and lay brothers went forth to complete their treason, leaving behind them rigorous orders that all the gates of the abbey should be kept closed, and that none should be admitted therein until they returned from Cam-Bridge.[238] The way which the traitors took across the fens and broad waters of Ely was indirect and long, for they feared to be seen of any Saxon, and so shunned the good folk of the township of Ely, the faithful vassals and loaf-eaters of the abbey. Nevertheless they got to the causey which the Normans had made before compline, or second vespers, and finding fleet horses there waiting for them, they got to the castle at Cam-Bridge, and into the presence of Duke William and his fiercer half-brother, Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, two good hours before the beginning of lauds.[239] The false Saxons kneeled at the feet of the Normans, kissed their hands—mailed hands both, for the bishop, heedless of the canons of the church, wore armour and carried arms as frequently as his brother the duke, and, like the duke, intended to take the field against the last of the Saxons, and was only waiting for the summons and the sign which the monks of Ely were to give. The compact had been propounded many nights before this; but now the duke, speaking as lawful sovereign of England, and the Bishop of Bayeux, speaking as one that had authority from the primate Lanfranc