human
After a little, the Duke asked him a question as to how he entered our house, and then my mother inquired if he had seen my father. He seemed a merry fellow, our thief, and so well pleased to be cared for and let live that by and by he laughed outright until the Duke bade him have a care. Nor was this at all a needless caution, because the next day, quite early on the sixth morning, we could too easily hear feet above us on the floor of the wine-vault. I heard the Duke’s ’Hist!’ and we were all as still as mice, except that the Duke, as before, gave me a pistol and went up the ladder to be ready. I, following him, waited a little further down. It must have been that they were making free with the wine, because some of it was spilled and ran through the trap and down my neck. It quite scared me, but in peril and in darkness a little thing will do that. One man fell over the staves, but, as the Duke told us later, he swore as if hurt, and so, I fancy, did not chance to see our trap-door. All day long we prayed and listened and watched. When, at nightfall, all sounds were over, we resolved that the Duke should take a look outside, not knowing what to do or how otherwheres to find an exit we might think to use.
gpt
And then,
human
Ah me! and then,—you remember.