Page:9009 (1908).djvu/30

Rh denly swung inward with a clang, and through the arched way, beneath the turret with its rapid-fire gun, a line of convicts began to flow inward, a line writhing like a snake, gray as a larva, and mounted upon legs like a centipede. It came, slowly, smoothly, across the yard, toward 9009, the garotter, and the trusty, who had halted; it crept by them; its head sank into the door of one of the cell houses to the right; and still the tail was oozing, as though it were to be endlessly, out of the archway to the left. 9009 understood; it was the of which he often had heard. The convicts marched in single file, each with both hands on the shoulders of the man before him; from this came the undulating unison of the long, striped thing. It crawled by him; he scanned its links; one by one the white faces flashed by. Each face was set straight ahead, looking downward; each face was white and held a dull hardness. And from these men, each touching the other with both hands on his shoulders, there came no sound; the lips were motionless. They marched;