The suddenness of the surprise--and the rapidity with which the affair had terminated in the destruction or capture of the French detachment, seemed magical.--No attempt had been made to carry the orders of Colonel La Coste into execution, and my danger was confined to the ordinary chances of receiving a flying bullet by mistake.--From the moment a shot was heard, my captors lost all heart, and appeared to consider their situation desperate: generally mercy was extended--and in a time inconceivably short, the prisoners were secured, and stripped of every thing that was deemed worthy of notice by the guerillas. From the neat and uniform appointments of the French soldiers, the eye turned in surprise on the strange and motley appearance the guerilla band presented. Every individual was dressed and armed after his especial fancy. All were differently equipped; and had not sad realities presented themselves, the whole might have been imagined a military masquerade. The costumes of several countries were united in a single dress. The flaring scarlet and light blue jacket of an Estremaduran hussar--the shaco of a French chasseur--pistols and saddle of English manufacture--the long straight sword of the cuirassier--the brown Spanish sash, and leathern cartouch-box, with an Arragonese or Catalan escopeta, were not unfrequent equipments of the same brigand, as the French invariably entitled them. * * Leith Hay. Although none of the captives escaped plunder, and many were cruelly insulted in the operation, it was singular that all the partidas treated me with respect, and left me unscathed in person or effects. Presently a buzz around me attracted my attention. A man was forcing a passage through the crowd, and the guerillas civilly made way for him. He was dressed and armed in the same wild and incongruous style which marked the costume of these irregular partisans; and he looked as much the brigand as if he had served a regular apprenticeship to the profession. Great, therefore, was my astonishment when I heard him pronounce my name; but greater still, when he seized both my hands in his, and half said, half sobbed--“Hector, _avourneeine!_--Have I found my foster-brother once more?” It was, indeed, the lost Mark Antony; and, as far as one could judge by appearances, the fosterer had neither received damage in the late affray, nor in his morning swim over the Sedana.