And here he was telling them that, as he sat against the trunk of the tree, it had seemed to him that a glimmer of light came from this direction — and he pointed out the direction — in every moment that followed the storm's passing gusts... The three deliberated on the matter, and concluded that the source of the light must be the house of the family that lives in the apple orchard standing on the slope of the hill; and if their guess was right — and it most likely was, if they took into account the position of this tree, which they knew, relative to the orchard — then they were not in as much danger as they had imagined, nor had they strayed far from the hotel... If they could reach the source of the light, they would pass their night there...

The three swallowed a few sips of cognac; George and Charles each took Salwa by the waist, and they resumed their walk toward the light, which George and Salwa too now began to make out from time to time. They kept on struggling against the storm as it struggled against them, lighting

one lamp and putting out the other, until at last they reached the house of the owners of the apple orchard — and it was, precisely, the source of the light.

The lady of the family wel-comed them — a generous old woman with the vigor of youth and the graciousness of young years. Her daughter-in-law, her son, and their grown children appeared, and all began busying themselves with preparing hot tea and kindling the fire in the stove, while the old woman set before her guests cheese, laban, and olives. Then she motioned to Salwa to follow her, and there she changed her clothes for peasant garments in which she looked charming and sweet; and she asked the two young men to wrap themselves in the woolen blankets she offered them, and set about drying everyone's clothes by the stove while they devoured what she had served them and drank the refreshing wine...

And in this warm atmosphere of spontaneous, hospitable friend-liness for which the mountain folk are famed, and in this tranquil, quiet refuge at the foot of a

hill over which a wild storm had broken loose, the three sleepers passed that night of theirs...

They slept long into the morn-ing, and the old woman allowed no one to disturb them: the storm had calmed, and they had all the time in the world to return wherever they pleased. But what was this airplane circling so insistently over the district?? It must be searching for the lost ones. Let it do as it would — it should not wake her guests... In a few hours everyone would know that they had been found; let them sleep and take their ease...

But no sooner did eight o'clock in the morning draw near than there came upon the house the rescue teams of the tourism and summering company and of the Commissariat of Tourism and Summering, and a party of skiers belonging to the Cedars team, and they rushed inside — having spent most of their night searching for the lost ones...

They seated Salwa on a chair and carried her — she had suffered a broken foot — and took them all back to the hotel in some-thing like a festival procession...