"What are you going to do?" anxiously asked my wife.
"I'm going to see what has happened," said I. At that moment there was another noise. This was like two or three heavy footsteps, followed by a sudden thump; but it was not so loud as the others.
"John," cried my wife, "don't stir an inch, it's burglars!" and she sprang out of bed and seized me by the arm.
"I must go down," I said; "but there is really no reason for your being frightened. I shall call David, and shall carry my pistol, so there is really no danger. If there are thieves in the house they have probably decamped by this time—that is, if they are able to do so, for of course they must know that noise would awaken the soundest sleepers."
My wife looked at me and then slowly withdrew her hands from my arm.
"You promise me," she said, "if you find a burglar downstairs in the possession of his senses you will immediately come back to me and George William?"
I promised her, and, slipping on some clothes, I went out into the second-story hall. I carried no light. Before I had reached the bottom of the back stairs I heard David, my man, coming down. To be sure it was he and not a burglar I spoke to him in a low voice, my pistol raised in case of an unsatisfactory reply.
"I heard that noise, sir," he whispered, "and was going down to see about it."
"Are you ready if it's thieves?" I whispered.
"I have got the biscuit-beater," he replied.