At the moment, when Conko rose and stood waist-deep in the water of the little lake, he heard a woman’s voice, screaming like a swamp panther:
“Run, niggers, run! De white folks is comin’!”
Conko looked up and beheld a hundred white men following close behind Goldie Diamond, as the girl ran toward them like a yellow streak, proclaiming with a Gabriel-trumpet tone:
“Run, niggers, run! De white folks is comin’!”
For one tense moment the crowd of blacks huddled together like quails bunch before a windstorm. Then, with one voice, a squall of fear split the sky, and the mob whirled like Dervishes and bumped into each other like blind bugs in a tin can.
After that, with one accord, they went into the woods, leaping stumps and logs, tearing their garments to shreds upon the snags and vines, falling and rising again, miring themselves in the muck of the swamp, howling like a wolf-pack, their voices echoing through the forest with terrifying reverberations.
Conko Mukes dived back into the lake, swam across it, and hid in the deep marsh-grass on the other side until after dark.
The next morning, Sheriff John Flournoy met Skeeter Butts and inquired:
“Skeeter, what made you niggers run off yesterday when we came out to see the fight?”