A Night of Horror.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XLIV, Issue 5968, 10 August 1912, Page 1

A Night of Horror.

The Paris correspondent of the Daily Express tolls a dramatic story oi an accident tliat befell the Comte do Norville at Belleville. The Count went to visit a friend one day last month, and did not return home at night. His family became alarmed, mnd the, village policeman was informed of the matter and went in search. The Count had to .cross certain waste lands, in which was an old quarry, oi great depth, and it was leared he might have fallen into it in the darkness. Devos, the policeman, .o.uid the Count at half-past three in the morning, shortly plter, dawu. The Comte de Korvillo was sitliiw on the edge oi a shallow pit, near 1 ho quarry laughing. When he was questioned as to what had befallen him he continued to laugh. Devos -became alarmjcd, and brought the village doctor. The Count continued to laugh, and said he had a very tunny story ' to tell, the funniest story that had ever been told. Ik- had started to' walk home the' previous night, with a lantern. The lantern went out, so he threw it away and walked on. Suddenly his foot slipped, aim he fell some. feet. He clutched a small tretroot,, which stopped his further fall, and hung on with all his misrhl. He had fallen into the quarry, he believed, and there was a sheer drop of 300 feet ii the root gave way. It was 11 o'clock when he fe 1, and he remained clinging to the tree-root in deadly terror till day broke. Then for same minutes he dared not look down. When he did so, ho found that he had fallen, not into the quarry, but into ;v shallow pit, not twenty k:>A de-\'-with a soft sand bottom. The doctor endeavoured to stop the Count's hj' ; (piical laughing, but was unable to do so. It was subsequently found that the shock of the tart that he had been m safety all the time had unhinged his mind. The Comte de Norvjlle is now -an im>tte of the Caen Mental Asylum.