He stood in the narrow gutter of shadow along the base of the façade of the “Stone Building,” and he stared at the guard on the wall with dilated eyes used to searching darkness. The man was coming from the far extremity of his beat, toward 9009, pacing slowly, his rifle loose in hand; he paused to readjust the muffler around his neck, and then, abruptly, his head snapped forward and his rifle rose in his hand.
It may have been the pillar of shade, the blacker shadow in the black shadows which had not been there before—for peering straight toward the place, the guard became very tense; in the glare 9009 could see his features tighten, his left arm crook. The rifle was still going up; it stopped halfway between hip and shoulder; the two men stood still as graven images—the guard, a sharp figure in the blue-white light, bent, taut, watching; the barred convict in the shadow, crouching, motionless, his eyes peering without lid movement, like the pitiless eyes of a snake.
And then the guard relaxed; he dropped back
