CHAPTER TEN
9009 waited to be shot, staring dully at the rifle-muzzles, then at the other things about him. His jaw drooped so that his mouth was half open, and his eyes were wide. He panted. Details came to him slowly.
Six guards, immobile, aiming their rifles at him.
Between him and the guards, two striped huddles, like wound snakes upon the beaten earth of the earth. A limp hand drooping loosely from the nearest huddle, a white face upturned, very still, a flash of yellow teeth between drawn lips—this was Miller. The other—he could not tell who the other was.
Off to one side, three more guards; in front of each, a convict; the guards holding drawn revolvers, each muzzle against the belly of one of the convicts. In the centre of this group,
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