As soon as the very first faint streaks of light began to interweave themselves with the grey clouds in the east, the smugglers were upon their feet, and, gathering round Garcias and myself, began to ask a great many more questions than they had ventured on the night before. My dress and my person became objects of some curiosity among them; and it so unfortunately happened that more than one of the smugglers, who had seen me at the mill in former days, instantly recognised me at present. However, as probably no one of them would have found it agreeable himself to assign his exact reasons for joining the lawless band with which he consorted, I escaped all questions as to the cause of my appearing amongst them. Each, probably, attributed it to some separate imagination of his own; but the high favour in which our house stood with this honourable fraternity, assured me the most enthusiastic reception; and they mutually rivalled one another in their endeavours to serve me, and render my situation comfortable. It was in vain now to attempt concealing from any one of the band my rank in life; but in order that accident should not extend my real name beyond the mere circle of those who knew me, I followed a custom which I found they generally adopted themselves--that of distinguishing themselves, each by a different appellation, when actually engaged in any of their hazardous enterprises, from that by which they were ordinarily known in the world. I therefore took the name of De l'Orme, to which I was really entitled by birth; the Comté de l'Orme having been in our family from time immemorial. These arrangements, the quick questions of the smugglers, their wild, strange manners, and picturesque appearance, all formed a relief to a mind anxious to escape from itself; and perhaps no society into which I could have fallen would have afforded me so much the means of abstracting my thoughts from all that was painful in my situation. After having satisfied their curiosity in regard to me, the Spaniards, to the number of twenty, gathered round Garcias to hear how he had disposed of the smuggled goods, which had been deposited at the mill; and certainly, never did a more picturesque group meet my view, than that which they presented, with their fine muscular limbs, rich coloured dresses, deep sun-burnt countenances, and flashing black eyes; while each cast himself into some of those wild and picturesque attitudes, which seem natural to mountaineers; and the form of Garcias towering above them all, looked like that of the Farnesian Hercules, fresh from the garden of the Hesperides.