The queen of the isle

by May Agnes Fleming

"Yes; Mr. Brantwell could not travel as fast as I could, and will not be here till to-morrow, and I—oh! I rode as if the old demon were at my heels all the way—and I'll never rest easy again till I've put a bullet through Courtney's brain; for, he's the cause of it all, with his diabolical circumstantial evidence," exclaimed Stafford, with still increasing vehemence.

"Mr. Stafford, do give me the particulars!"

"You know the trial was to commence on Tuesday?"

"Yes."

"Well, as soon as the doors of the court-house were thrown open, the galleries, and staircases, and every corner of the building were filled to suffocation by an eager crowd. I got in among the rest of the rabble, and secured a good place where I could see and hear everything. Owing to some cause or other, the people had to wait a good while; and just as they were getting clamorous and impatient, they saw the carriage making its way slowly through the mass of people that lined and crowded the streets, unable to obtain an entrance into the court-house. Then every one was on tiptoe with expectation to see the prisoner, the fame of whose wealth and beauty, and the strange circumstances attending her arrest, had been blazoned the whole country round. It was with the greatest difficulty that a passage could be forced through the crowd as she entered, dressed in deepest black, closely veiled, and in the custody of the high sheriff. Captain Campbell and Drummond followed closely after, and took their places near her. As she took her seat, you might have heard a pin drop, so intense was the silence; but when, a moment after, she threw back her vail, and her pale, beautiful face, with its dark, proud, scornful eyes, that went wandering for an instant round with contemptuous disdain for the gaping crowd, a low, deep murmur of admiration, surprise, and pity, passed through the vast assemblage of human beings; and the next instant they were profoundly still once more.

"The jury were already impaneled, and the presiding judge, and the State attorney, and Sibyl's counsel, had taken their places, so the trial immediately commenced. When the clerk of the court put the customary question—'Guilty or not guilty'—I wish you had seen the slender form of Sibyl tower aloft, and her glorious eyes flash, and her beautiful lip curl with scorn and disdain, as she answered:

"'Not guilty! your honor.'

"There is no use in my telling you the State attorney's charge. You'll see it all in the papers, if you have any curiosity on the subject. All I need say is, that it seemed to destroy every favorable impression made on the minds of the jury by the youth, beauty, and sex of the prisoner. He spoke of the pain it gave him to be obliged to make this charge against a woman, whose interesting appearance he saw had already made a deep impression on the minds of all present; but he trusted the gentlemen of the jury would not allow themselves to be carried away by their feelings, for 'appearances were often deceitful;' and he made a long preamble about demons wearing the forms of angels of light, and of the crimes other women, gentle and loving before, had been induced to commit in sudden paroxysms of jealousy—as this crime had been—as he was prepared to prove. He spoke of many cases of women—some of which had come under his own immediate knowledge—of women stabbing themselves, their lovers, their rivals, in fits of jealous passion. He spoke of the well-known jealousy and vindictiveness that had ever characterized the race from which the interesting prisoner at the bar had sprung, and that he would soon show that she had been ever noted—even since childhood—for these same faults. Then he drew a pathetic picture of the victim—her youth, her gentleness, her trusting simplicity—until every woman present was sobbing as if her heart would break. But when he concluded by saying that the murdered girl was the wife of the prisoner's lover—married to him in secret, as he would shortly prove—a thrill ran through every heart."

"His wife!" exclaimed Mrs. Brantwell, looking up in dismay and incredulity.

"Yes, Mrs. Brantwell, his wife; and she was, too," said Stafford, sorrowfully. "When Willard Drummond—who had all this time been standing motionless, his hat drawn over his brow—heard the words, he started, reeled, and turned as deadly white as if he had received a pistol-shot through the heart. Sibyl lifted her wild, black eyes, and reading in that look, that action, the truth of the words, with a long, low cry dropped her face in her hands, with such a look of utter despair, that every heart stood still. Captain Campbell sprang up as if some one had speared him, and would have throttled Drummond on the spot, I firmly believe, if a policeman had not interfered, and held him back.