In a few minutes he heard the sound of many feet and voices.

Instantly he turned the tap of the cask from which the man had been drinking, set the candle beside it on the floor, went down the steps and out of the little door, followed by Lina, and closed it behind them.
Through the hole in it he could see a little, and hear all.

He could see how the light of many candles filled the place, and could hear how some two dozen feet ran hither and thither through the echoing cellar; he could hear the clash of iron, probably spits and pokers, now and then; and at last heard how, finding nothing remarkable except the best wine running to waste, they all turned on the butler and accused him of having fooled them with a drunken dream.

He did his best to defend himself, appealing to the evidence of their own senses that he was as sober as they were.

They replied that a fright was no less a fright that the cause was imaginary, and a dream no less a dream that the fright had waked him from it.
When he discovered, and triumphantly adduced as corroboration, that the key was gone from the door, they said it merely showed how drunk he had been--either that or how frightened, for he had certainly dropped it.
In vain he protested that he had never taken it out of the lock--that he never did when he went in, and certainly had not this time stopped to do so when he came out; they asked him why he had to go to the cellar at such a time of the day, and said it was because he had already drunk all the wine that was left from dinner.