ert, and returning
Max's quick salute he turned to call him back.

"Good evening, Corporal! I should like to speak with you a minute!"
DeLisle cried out cheerfully in English. Max's heart gave a bound.
Surely never could the word "Corporal" have sounded so like fine music
in a poor, non-commissioned officer's ears!

He wheeled, pale with pleasure that his beau ideal should wish to speak
with him, and in English, the language they had used when they were
still social equals. "My Colonel!" he stammered.

"I want to congratulate you on your quick promotion," said DeLisle. "It
has come to you in spite of your resolution to take no advantage in the
beginning over your comrades. I congratulate you on that, too, and on
keeping it, now it has turned out so well. I hoped and believed it would
be so, though I advised you for your good."

"I know that, my Colonel," answered Max, determined not to presume in
speech or act upon his superior officer's kindness. "I knew it then."

"It may seem a pitifully small step up," DeLisle went on, "but it's the
first reward the Legion can give a soldier. There will be others. I
shall have to congratulate you again before long, I'm sure. Meanwhile, I
have a message for you." He paused for an instant, slightly hesitating,
perhaps. "It is from my daughter. She is in the south, visiting the
daughter of an Agha who is very loyal to France as a servant, very loyal
to me as a friend. Because of the march last spring, and again this one,
now coming (which I expected for this time, and on which I must go
myself), I could not have a young girl like Sanda living in
Sidi-bel-Abbes. She is happy and interested where she is, and she has
not forgotten you. In more than one letter she has wished to be
remembered to you, if possible. To-night, Corporal, it _is_ possible,
and I'm glad to give the message."

"I thank you for it, my Colonel," Max said, half ashamed of the deep
feeling which his voice betrayed. "I--wish I might be able to thank Miss
DeLisle. It is a great deal to me that she should remember me--my----"

"Your chivalry? It would be impossible to forget," DeLisle took him up
crisply. Then he dismissed the subject, as Max felt. "Tell me," he went
on in the same cheerful tone in which he had called out "Corporal!" "Are
you happy to escape the caserne, and get away to the desert?"

Suddenly a wild idea sprang into Max's head. Desperately, not daring to
let himself stop and think, he spoke. "I sh