Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1869-03-21
A Strange story.

From The London Telegraph
/ Holland is net precisely the countr,
to which one is accustomed to look fo
any particularly startling romance o
real life" A strange story, however
reaches us from Scheveningen, the bath
I ing place of the Hague Fashionable
Dutch resort, whose "humors wer,
fully portrayed last summer by one oi
our correspondents. A fortnight ago
fishermen going along the beach, saw
something, which could not, by any
4 stress or language, be considered as +" a
common object along the sea-shore. J
Seven o'clock on a January morning
| the tide low; the morning light, still
uncertain and faint-what was the mean
| ing of the figure which lay there, as
silent and mOtionless as death itself, in
thick mud, just beyond reach of the
waves? Drawing near, the folk found
that the body was well clad, and more
over, that it was still alive. .f.. o. AL.
As the man revived, they spoke to
him in Dutch he made signs that he
could not comprehend them. They
managed to question him in few words
Of French; stiIl by pantomime he indi-
Gated that he was unable to speak, and
that he desired to be furnished with ma
terials for writing. When these were
given him he wrote that he was the son
Of the Comte Moustier, whose address at
Paris he gave, and nephew of the late
Minister Of Foreign Affairs. This de-
elaration was believed but it was
thought worth while to mention it to the
Marquis de Seves, the French Secretary
Of Legation at the Hague. That gen.
tleman telegraphed to Paris, and in
few hours the Comte Montier replied
that his son had, indeed, disappeared
some days since, and that he himself
would be on the spot as soon as posi-
bic.
Meanwhile medical examination of
the young man showed that his mouth
had been bruised and his tongue slight
ly lacerated by a brutal and summary
process of gagging. He could furnish
even in writing no clue to this mystery.
His last recollection $50 he wrote) was
that of having been suddenly assailed in
Paris, at nine o'clock in the evening, by
a blow on the back of the head that he
had then tainted, and remembered moth
ing more. Sure enough, the blow on
the head left its marks and it was as
eertained that on the night before he
was found on the beach "a small vessel
had been observed sailing close in shore.
Count MOustier arriving, recognized the
unfortunate gentleman as his son; de-
elared himself utterly unable to compre-
hend the story; but added that the lad
-he is only eighteen-had hitherto
been irreproaehable in his conduct. To
make a strange story stranger still, the
young man had not been robbed of any
article Of value. r.r-s r1a
The notion that man can be kidnap-
ped, without rhyme or reason, in Paris,
sent in an unconscious state to the shore,
and thence quietly transhippedp 2 to
Holland, disorders all our ideas of what
is probable, and yet there is a good deal
of sense in the old maxim, that nothing
is absolutely certain to happen except
the unforeseen. We tell the tale as it is
told to US by Brussels newspaper, which
gives abundant details; but we do not
profess to guarantee its truth, still less
to supply what the French call +" the
word Of the enigma. -