of thing."

Jimmy Peters said, "The big item is that any averagely intelligent
person can begin speaking Esperanto within a few hours. Within a week
of even moderate study, say three or four hours a day, he's
astonishingly fluent."

[Illustration]

Isobel said thoughtfully, "There'd be international advantages. It's
always been a galling factor in Africans dealing with Europeans that
they had to learn the European language involved. You couldn't expect
your white man to learn kitchen kaffir, or Swahili, or whatever, not
when you got on the diplomatic level."

Cliff Jackson was thinking out loud. "So far, El Hassan is an unknown.
Rumor has it that he's everything from a renegade Egyptian, to an
escaped Mau-Mau chief, to a Senegalese sergeant formerly in the French
West African forces. But when he starts running into the press and
they find that Homer and his closest associates all speak English, and
most of them with an American accent, there's going to be some fat in
the fire."

"And El Hassan will have lost some of his mysterious glamour," Homer
added thoughtfully.

Even Moroka, the South African, was beginning to accept the idea. "If
El Hassan, himself, refused in the presence of foreigners ever to
speak anything but Esperanto, the aura of mystery would continue."

Jimmy Peters, elaborating and obviously pushing an opinion he and his
brother had already discussed, said, "We make it a rule that every
school, both locally taught and foreign, must teach Esperanto as a
required subject. All El Hassan governmental affairs would be
conducted in that language. Anybody at all trying to get anywhere in
the new regime would have to learn the official inter-African tongue."

"Oh, brother," Cliff groaned, "that means me." He brightened. "We
haven't any books or anything, as yet."

Isobel laughed at him. "I'll take on your studies, Cliff. We have a
few books. Those that Homer and his team used to kill time with. And
as soon as we're in a position to make requests for foreign aid of the
great powers, Esperanto grammars, dictionaries and so forth can be
high on the list."

With a sharp cry, almost a bark, a figure jumped into the entrance and
with a bound into the center of the tent, sub-machinegun in hand.
"_All right, everybody. On your feet. The place is raided!_"

Dave Moroka leaped to his feet, his hand tearing with blurring speed
for his holstered hand gun. "Where's that bodyguard?" he yelled.

VII

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