Imploring what?
The man's death?
I could not quite get the bearings of the thing.

But Hugo interrupted her and said: "Peace! Ye wit not what ye ask.

Shall I starve whom I love, to win a gentle death?
I wend thou knewest me better." "Well," I said, "I can't quite make this out.

It is a puzzle.

Now--" "Ah, dear my lord, an ye will but persuade him! Consider how these his tortures wound me! Oh, and he will not speak!--whereas, the healing, the solace that lie in a blessed swift death--" "What _are_ you maundering about?
He's going out from here a free man and whole--he's not going to die." The man's white face lit up, and the woman flung herself at me in a most surprising explosion of joy, and cried out: "He is saved!--for it is the king's word by the mouth of the king's servant--Arthur, the king whose word is gold!" "Well, then you do believe I can be trusted, after all.