The True Will 343
‘putting a tray with my breakfast at my side. I was
aware of a vague subconscious annoyance that the
food was cold.
When the tom-tom sounded for the noonday Adora-
tion, I got up and stretched myself; my brain was
completely fagged out. I joined the little party on the
terrace at the salutation to the sun.
“‘ Hail unto thee who art Ahathor in thy triumphing,
even unto thee who art Ahathor in thy beauty; that
travellest over the heavens in thy bark at the mid-
‘career of the Sun. Tahuti standeth in his splendour at
the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm. Hail unto
thee from the abodes of morning!”
One of the party made a very singular impression on
me. There was something indefinably Mongolian about
her face. The planes were flat ; the cheek-bones high ;
the eyes oblique; the nose wide, short, and vital;
the mouth a long, thin, rippling curve like a mad
sunset. The eyes were tiny and green with a piquant
elfin expression. Her hair was curiously colourless;
it was very abundant; she had wound great ropes
about her head. It reminded me of the armature of
a dynamo. It produced a weird effect—this mingling
of the savage Mongol with the savage Norseman type.
Her strange hair fascinated me. It was that delicate
flaxen hue—so fine. The face was extraordinarily
young and fresh, all radiant with smiles and blushes.
“ Peter, my boy,” I said to myself, ‘ you’d better
get busy and finish that helicopter and make some
money, because that’s the girl you're going to marry.”
This conviction seized me with the force of a revela-
tion ; for the girl was mysteriously familiar. It seemed
as if I had seen her in a dream or something like that.
I was very annoyed to find an arm familiarly slipped
through mine, while a voice said in my ear :—
“We may as well walk over to the refectory for
lunch. You haven’t answered my question about how
you came to take up flying.”
“When you asked me, I wasn’t at all clear in my
D.D.F. Zz