he old woman knelt by his side.

She put the lamp on the floor.

Then she reached out one of her long, lean, bony, skinny, shrivelled
hands, and took Bob by the hair of his head, while with the other
she raised her sharp weapon.

CHAPTER IX.

_The Cavalcade in Pursuit.--Hopes and Fears.--Theories about the
lost Boy.--A new Turn to Affairs.--Explanations.--On to
Salerno.--Inquiries.--Baffled.--Fresh Consternation and
Despondency.--The last Hope._

Meanwhile the party on donkeys trotted along the road after Bob.
At the exclamation from the donkey boy they had all experienced a
shock; but soon they recovered from it, and the shock only served
as a stimulus to make them push the donkeys onward more rapidly.
They rode on for some time without making any remarks, each one
looking eagerly forward to see if Bob might reappear; but he had
vanished behind a turn in the road, and as they advanced, there
were other turns to be encountered, and so they were unable to see
him. This began to create uneasiness. At first they all had hoped
that Bob would be able to stop the ass, or that the animal, after
indulging his paces for a short time, would stop of his own accord;
but the farther they went, the more they became convinced that this
affair had something serious in it.

At length they reached that long, straight piece of road already
mentioned. At one end of this was a rising ground; as they ascended
this and reached its summit, they looked ahead, and there, far away
before them, was a single rider. They recognized Bob at once. He
was more than a mile away; but the sight of him filled them all
with joy, and they at once stimulated their donkeys to greater
exertions. In spite of the distance that intervened, they all
shouted as loud as they could; but of course the distance was too
great, and their cries were lost before they reached nearly as far
away as Bob. In a short time he turned in the road, and passed out
of sight.

They now rode on for a long time, and at length came to the road
that led to the mountains, up which Bob had gone. This road was
not even noticed by them. They had passed other roads of the same
kind, which, like this one, led to the mountains, and attached no
more importance to this than to those. In the minds of some of
them, however, these side-roads suggested a fear, that Bob's ass
might have turned off into some one of them; but of course, as they
were all alike, they could not conjecture w