Had he not listened enough, or had he spoken too much?
How could so childlike a creature take an oath to commit murder?
In the corridor he spoke seriously to the gaoler.
"I must point out to you that the man is very ill.

Don't treat him harshly." The old man was annoyed.
"I beg your pardon, sir! To treat a poor devil like that harshly! If you pity him, why were you so rough with him ?" He rubbed a lamp-glass with a coarse rag in order to get the black off.

"'To die by hanging.' Even said as gently as that, it hurts more than when we roundly abuse the people, and yet that's at once taken amiss.

Only to prove it.
Ill! Of course he's ill, poor devil.

I am only surprised the doctors haven't been to cure him.