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Rh of opening doors, and the convicts, flowing out into the corridors, spent fifteen minutes cleaning them and cleaning their cells. For that time, speaking was allowed; and 9009 noted how some of the stripes-clad men slipped, in passing, stealthy words from moveless lips; gathered about the sinks, others gibed each other cruelly; but some, their eyes on the floor always, muttered to themselves without cease. There was fifteen minutes of this, then, at the gong’s stroke, the men, suddenly petrified into silence—the silence that was to last through the day—marched out to the dining-hall. From now on no speech was allowed. Silently each man stepped out of his cell, and placed his hands upon the shoulders of the man ahead of him, forming the lock-step line. The guard—he was a grizzled blue-eyed fellow who had lived most of his life in prison—unarmed as were all the guards who worked within reach of the convicts, waited till they were in formation, and then unlocked the door at the bottom of the corridor. With a hissing of feet upon the con- Rh