I was beginning to investigate the reasons for this agglomeration, when the southerly breeze, which already during the morning had inspired us with a few vague fears, suddenly brought up a cohort of clouds which melted into rain. Before we knew it, we were shrouded in a thick, drizzling mist, which prevented us from seeing two yards in front of us. By an unfortunate coincidence, one of us, my good friend Delacour, had strayed aside in search of Euphorbia saxitalis, one of the botanical curiosities of these heights. Making a speaking-trumpet of our hands, we shouted as one man. No answer came. Our voices were lost in the flaky thickness and the dull sound of the whirling mist. As the wanderer could not hear us, we had to look for him. In the darkness it was impossible to see one another at a distance of two or three yards; and I was the only one of the seven to know the locality. So that nobody might be left in the lurch, we took hands and I placed myself at the head of the chain. For some minutes we played a regular game of blind-man’s-buff, leading to nothing. No doubt, on seeing the clouds drift up, Delacour, who knew the Ventoux, had taken advantage of the last gleams of light to hasten to the shelter of the Jas. We resolved to make for it ourselves as quickly as possible, for already our clothes were streaming with rain inside as well as out. Our white-duck trousers were sticking to us like a second skin. A serious difficulty arose: the hurrying backwards and forwards, the twisting and turning, while we looked about us, had reduced me to the plight of a person whose eyes are bandaged and who is then made to spin round on his heels. I had lost all sense of direction; I had not the least idea which was the southern slope. I questioned this man and that; opinions were divided and most uncertain. The upshot was that not one of us could say where the north lay and where the south. Never in all my life had I realized the value of the points of the compass as I did at that moment. All around us was the mystery of the grey haze; beneath our feet we could just make out the beginning of a slope here and a slope there. But which was the right one? We had to make a choice and to launch out boldly. If, by bad luck, we went down the northern slope, we risked breaking our bones over the precipices the sight of which had but now filled us with dread. Perhaps not one of us would survive it. I passed a few minutes of acute perplexity. ‘Let’s stay here,’ said the majority, ‘and wait till the rain stops.’ ‘That’s bad advice,’ replied the others, of whom I was one, ‘that’s bad advice: the rain may last a long while; and, wet through as we are, we shall freeze on the spot at the first chill of night.’