had raised his whip to strike her, but she grabbed the thrashing hide, wheeled him in by it, then toppled him on to the ground. Not so, said Elizabeth Millar, for all was heat and smoke and black as the houses burned. Who could know Miss Kitty in that confusion? And a white man flung from his horse by a nigger? What a tall-tall telling—all would have been hanged for it.
Wilfred Park said he found Miss Kitty walking at the edge of the village, toward the mill yard, within a river of creatures; lizards, bullfrogs, beetles, spiders, cicadas, cockroaches, scorpions, snakes, snails, all seethed around her feet. Wilfred, seeing this exodus of bug-a-bugs free to creep from their hide-holes to scurry, run, hop, slide and slither away with her, asked Kitty if they were all free now—like Mr Bushell the missionary had told? But then a big stick hit him so hard upon his head that everything went black before Miss Kitty did answer him.
But Wilfred was of simple mind. According to Wilfred’s neighbour, Fanny, it was not a stick that hit him, he was struck by a galloping horse. Fanny had to drag the stunned Wilfred into the shit hole to hide there while two other horses did trample over the top of them. The itch-itching of the wriggly life within the stinking pit soon had Wilfred awake. But Fanny had seen Kitty running to the mill yard in amongst the bug-a-bugs that were fleeing from the singe of flames and the burn of smoke, just as Wilfred had said. Kitty was running with her dampened skirt held up about her mouth, coughing and choking and spitting and gulping at the air, but determined upon her course.
Who sighted Kitty next? Samuel Lewis. He saw Kitty creeping amongst the legs of the white men’s horses that were tethered in the works yard. Samuel had been seized while carrying a lighted torch (which he swore he was using to catch crayfish upon the river), and accused of setting light to the trash house. The young militia man who had tied him up, had warned him not to move or his head would be cut off. So Samuel was sitting with his back against the works wall very still indeed when he saw Kitty.
At that time not many negroes were penned there (unlike the confusion that was to follow within that yard), according to Anne Roberts and Betsy, who were roped together for throwing stones. The stocks were not even open, for the doctor had the key. And the militia-men, afraid at being alone with flimsy-tied niggers, were yelling, ‘Someone find the fucking doctor. Where is the fucking doctor?’ when the blast of gunshot went off.
And that is when they first saw Kitty—for suddenly she stood up from within the legs of the horses, bold as Nanny Maroon. Those two jumpy militia pointed their shaking pistols at her fleeing back, but so intent was Kitty to get to the mill yard that she was not feared.
‘Miss Kitty? She fly, oh she fly. Her feet no longer upon God’s earth; me see her soar t’rough the air. Give me the book so me can place me hand upon it. Me tell you, she fly!’ so said Miss Sarah.
Sarah was creeping from the mill to the works with the purpose of untying Anne and Betsy. But then she saw Tam Dewar, the overseer, riding in upon the mill yard. The strangers, ‘deh nasty girl and deh fenky-fenky man’, were being held there by the driver, who ran off as soon as he saw Dewar approach.
The driver, Mason Jackson, later swore that he did not run away. He knew Dewar’s horse, he declared, for it had a white patch upon its nose that glowed within moonlight. He watched as Tam Dewar, using his horse to coop them, backed those two strangers up against the stone wall of the mill. The girl, still holding up the limp man, could not move beyond the beast’s tramping hooves. She was caught. Then, the driver declared, he saw no more as he walked away.
But Miss Nancy, who was secreted within a nearby bush, said the girl was pleading, pleading, pleading with Tam Dewar, ‘Him no kill massa, him no kill massa!’ over and over she said it. At once imploring, then crying, then shouting, then jumping this way, then skipping that way, before falling once more to begging.
Benjamin Brown—a cattle-man watching this torment from within the mill—knew that the