chest, reassuring her with words through which flowed all his tenderness and his love.

The flashlight came alight, and the light restored confidence to his soul and hope of escape from this predicament, and he helped Salwa to rise. But no sooner had she risen and moved her legs than she let out a short, pained cry: her left leg hurt her and she could not shift it... George was shaken by this reality and realized that the attempt would be very difficult, for he would be forced to drag Salwa, if not to carry her, and that meant a loss of time, every scrap of which might bring them nearer to catastrophe... If only that tiresome Charles were with him — then the two of them could have managed the matter... Yet George gave Salwa no chance to notice what had passed through his mind; he took her by the waist —

the snows still falling, their dust thickening the fog — and they began to walk slowly through

the wild storm, George constantly switching the flashlight off and on again so as not to squander what reserve of light remained to it.

No one can point with certainty to the time George and Salwa spent in this attempt of theirs, lighting the lamp and putting it out... stop-ping to swallow a little cognac — Salwa too had her own small bottle — then resuming their walk... Then all at once George stopped, dumbfounded, at a moment when he had lit the lamp, asking Salwa: Did you hear a whisper over this way? He turned the lamp toward the source of the whisper — and there they were before a great tree, white with the whiteness of snow... and the whisper grew dis-tinct in a timid, questioning voice: George?? George??? George raised the lamp toward the voice, and his eyes fell upon Charles, clinging to one of the tree's boughs, seated upon its trunk, a small bottle of cognac in one of his hands. George

and Salwa cried out with one glad, exultant voice: Charles!!

Charles jumped to the ground and told them how the storm had driven him astray and the darkness had taken him by surprise; how his wandering steps had brought him to this tree, which he had climbed for fear some beast of prey might come upon him in such darkness; how he had not dared to light his lantern; and how, and how, and how... He left out not one detail of what had befallen him without describing it — joy had loosened his tongue...

Whoever had seen those three at that moment, talking in a calm, easy, reassured tone, would have thought them in the atmosphere of some familiar home... They had grown easy about their fate

and would find a way out of this fix... Every new element that joins a group floundering in a difficulty strengthens that group's morale; so it was with George and Salwa, and so it was with Charles too...