“I thought as much as all this,” quoth the sword-bearer; and without asking any questions, he followed the cloister-monk and the lay-brother to the gatekeeper’s chamber, praising and blessing the saints for this his so speedy deliverance. As he entered the room, reverentially saluting the other cloister-monks, the porter gave him his sword, which had been snatched from him upon his being first seized under the gateway. Next the stout porter took down some swords and spears, and fen-poles, that hung in his room, and armed his friends and himself with them; and then, in less than a Credo, the whole party got out of the monastery through the wicket-gate, and, first closing and fastening the wicket on the outside, they all took the broad high road that leads to Turbutsey. Six good cloister-monks, and ten good lay-brothers and servientes, were there in this company; but all the rest of the convent remained behind to await the slaughter of their countrymen in the Camp, to welcome the Normans to Ely, and to get from them—that which they deserved. Elfric and Tom of Tottington (an expert fenner, and much fitter to be a soldier than the waiting-man of a monk) presently quitted the road to take a rough path across the fens which led directly into the Camp: the rest hastened on to Turbutsey, and as they arrived there before the midnight, they were in good time to aid the true men Elfric had left there in getting the good stores across the river and well into the fens. Some of the party would have left the body of Girolamo behind at Turbutsey, or would have thrown it into the river; but the people said what Elfric had said to them concerning the dead body, and the fighting men who had fought the Normans near Brandon, and who had seen with their own eyes the Christian end the Salernitan had made, all declared that Girolamo must have Christian burial in some consecrated place where the Normans could not disturb his ashes. CHAPTER XXV. THE NORMANS IN THE CAMP.