The sentry seems to have mixed emotions in his scene with Creon as he turns Antigone over to him. He is clearly fearful of Creon's wrath. He hastens to tell the King that there is no doubt of Antigone's guilt, that she was caught in "the very act" of burying her brother's body. He stresses to Creon how efficiently he and the others had watched the body of Polyneices to catch whoever had buried it once before, just as Creon had instructed. As he describes what he had witnessed, the sentry says Antigone did not deny what she had been doing when she was apprehended:
She denied nothing.
And this was a comfort to me,
And some uneasiness: for it is a good thing
To escape from death, but it is no great pleasure
To bring death to a friend.
Yet I always say
There is nothing so comfortable as your own safe skin!
The sentry takes no joy in delivering Antigone to the King, but he is relieved to have saved himself from Creon's punishment had he failed to perform the King's order. The sentry's primary emotion, no doubt, is that he is now "off the hook." He says:
I am through with the whole thing now, and glad of it.
The sentry knows that dealing with Creon in his present state of ire is a dangerous activity.
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