So they let him go again, and set midnight to-night as the hour of the beginning of my death." "Did King know that his refusal to promise entailed your death ?" I asked.
He shook his head.
"Why didn't you tell him ?" "Because it would not have been true, my friend.

I had already been sentenced to death.

His promise could make no possible difference to my fate.

They let him go, and ordered me to present myself at midnight; so I went with him, to preserve him from the cobras in a tunnel through which he must pass.
"I brought him into this palace by hidden ways, and after I had shown him the audience hall, where these princesses are to meet, he asked me to go and find you--that being easier for me than for him, because none in this palace would be likely to question me, whereas he would be detected instantly and watched, even if not prevented.

And when I had found you--and you nearly killed me--some one, as you know, locked the door and shut us in here together.