Hurrying in, they made inquiries, and found that he had not come. This filled them all with the greatest concern; and the driver, and the landlord, and all others who heard of it, asserted that he must have been carried to the mountains. It was now dark. Nothing more could be done; and so they could only resolve to drive back on the following day, and make a more careful search after the lost boy. CHAPTER X. _The captive Boy and his grisly Visitant.--The Hand on his Head.--Denouement.--The Brigand Family.--The old Crone.--The Robber Wife.--The Brigand Children.--A Revolution of Feeling.--The main Road.--The Carriage.--In Search of Bob._ Paralyzed with terror, dumb with horror, Bob lay motionless and almost breathless; and the grisly old hag reached out her long, lean, thin, bony, withered, shrivelled hand, and took his hair, while with the other hand she raised her sharp weapon. She took his hair very lightly and tenderly; so lightly, indeed, that Bob was just conscious of her touch; and though he expected that he would be torn from his bed and struck dead the next instant, yet this fate was delayed. She took his hair then in her hand very gently and tenderly, and in her other hand she raised the sharp weapon. Now, the sharp weapon was a pair of sheep-shears. These shears she held forward, and with them she snipped off, as noiselessly as possible, a lock of Bob's hair. She pressed the lock of hair to her thin lips, looked at it steadfastly for some time, pressed it once more to her lips, and then put it in the folds of her dress. Then kneeling by Bob's side, she looked at him long and earnestly. She bent over him, and looked down upon him. She laid the shears upon the floor, clasped her withered hands together, and gazed upon the boy. He lay still. His eyes were closed; but the delay of his fate and the snip of the shears in his hair bad roused him somewhat from his abyss of terror. He opened his eyes wide enough to see what was going on. He could not see the old woman's face, but he saw her kneeling, and he saw her thin hands clasped before her, like one in prayer, and tremulous.