The queen of the isle

by May Agnes Fleming

"I had a presentiment that something terrible would occur that night, but I never dreamed of the awful murder that was perpetrated in one of the upper rooms. It was a stormy, tempestuous night, but the men were sent off again to a little sea-coast village some miles below N——, and when they came back they had with them another man, gagged and bound like the first.

"I could not rest that night, but sat anxiously in my room, in the basement story, longing with a strange dread for the morning. I felt sure some evil was meditated, and as I listened I suddenly heard one wild, terrific shriek, which I knew must be Bertha's. Half mad with terror, I fled from the room and stole into the lower hall to listen, but all was perfectly still. For upward of half an hour I remained thus; but nothing broke the deep stillness until heavy footsteps began to descend the stairs, and I saw the two worst of Campbell's gang coming down, and leading between them the man they had last brought to the isle. They placed him in a boat and rowed away, and I returned to the house, still ignorant of what had transpired. As I approached it I saw two others of the crew talking in low, hushed voices as they descended to the shore. I stole behind them to listen, and judge of my horror when I learned that, in his frantic jealousy, Campbell had murdered this stranger youth, and in his infernal barbarity had cast his loving wife and the murdered body of her supposed lover into a room together—consigning her to a death too fearful to contemplate. The man who had just been taken away was a mason, who had been procured to wall up the only door to the room.

"I listened, my very life-blood freezing with horror; but judge of my feelings when, from their description of the room, I knew it to be the one with the hidden door. In that instant everything was forgotten but the one thought of freeing her who was dearer still to me than life. I was more like a frantic man than one sane. I procured a ladder, made my way noiselessly into the deserted lumber room, ascended it, and carefully let fall the trap. The lifeless form of the murdered man lay across the opening, but I pushed it aside and sprang into the room, thinking only of Bertha. In the farthest corner, crouching down to the floor, she sat, a glibbering idiot. The terrible shock had driven her insane.

"What I felt at that dreadful sight no words can ever tell. I raised her in my arms and bore her, unresisting, down into the lumber-room. I closed the trap, concealed the ladder, and carrying her as if she were an infant, I fled from the accursed spot. She neither spoke nor uttered a single cry, but lay passively in my arms. There were boats on the shore; I placed her in one, and with a strength that seemed almost superhuman rowed over the heaving waves till morning. Whither I was going I knew not, neither did I care; my only object was to bear her beyond the reach of her deadly enemy.

"When morning came, I found myself on the shore, below this place. I had often been here, and admired this quiet and hidden spot, buried in the depths of the wood. Here I bore Bertha, who followed me like a child; and, before noon I had constructed a sort of rude hut, to screen her from the heat of the sun and the night dew. Then I went to N—— for such necessaries as I immediately required, and resolved, that here I would spend my life in watching over my poor, insane cousin.

"It would be dull, tedious, and uninteresting to relate how I labored for the next few weeks, to construct this hut, and form, as best I could, the rude furniture you see here. It was a labor of love, and I heeded not fatigue nor want of rest, until it was completed. No child in the arms of its nurse could be more quiet and docile than Bertha, but I saw that reason had fled forever. I fancied she would always remain thus still and gentle, and never dreamed she could be attacked by paroxysms of violence, like other lunatics; until one night, I was startled to find her raving mad, flying through the house and shrieking murder. All the events of that terrible night seemed to come back to her, and she fled from the house before I could detain her, sprang into the boat, and put off for the island. She knew how to manage a boat, and before I could reach N—— and procure another, she had reached the island, entered Campbell's Lodge, still making the air resound with her shrill shrieks of murder. Fortunately, in the dark, she was not perceived, and I managed to seize her and bear her off to the boat before any one beheld her.

"A fortnight after, when I visited N——, I learned that Mark Campbell was dead; and, I knew that he must have heard her cries, and supposing them to be supernatural, the shock had hastened his death.

"Of Bertha's child, I could discover nothing. How he disposed of it is unknown to me to this hour.

"And so, Bertha and I have lived here for fourteen years, unmolested, and our very existence is doubtless long since forgotten. She is, as you see her, gentle and harmless; but, she still has those periodical attacks of violence, but in a lesser degree than at first. At such times, by some strange instinct, or glimmering of reason, she always seeks the isle, enters Campbell's Lodge, and goes wandering through the rooms, as if vacantly trying to remember something that is past. These nocturnal visits have given the lodge the reputation of being haunted, which her appearance at different times upon the isle has confirmed. As the house was for several years deserted, except by some old servants, after the death of Mark Campbell, she could roam with impunity through the rooms—sometimes even pushing back bolts and entering apartments that were locked. Such, Christie, is the story of the maniac Bertha."

All this time Christie had been listening, with a look of the deepest, most absorbed attention, in silent amazement at all she heard. The mystery of the haunted house and the spirit of the isle, was cleared up at last.