Santa Fe daily New Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1885-1897, 1896-09-18

nocent lives placed where it belongs"
In pencil across Che margin of the clip
ping was scrawled in Calamity Dicks
cramped script, And 30 of 'em wimmen,
and Labor says the captain died a-cussin
the owner as the seas swept them pore
folks often the deck into the surf"
Baxton stared at the paper before him.
My God He had heard of the Bucephalus
before.
True, he was not born until years after
this terrible event. yet the memory of it
had poisoned all of his mothers remaining
days. Baxton, the Bucephalus murder
err, he had heard somebody say in his
fathers lifetime, but until tonight he
never knew the meaning of the words.
And here, on the very scene of the horror,
the son of it's author was domiciled under
the cabin walls of that long lost ship.
Yonder it's figurehead Knocked him with
staring eyes.
"The hull is breaking upl' 1t is no Ion
ger the fisherman's house, but the cabin
of a sinking ship. See how the timbers
strain and wrench as the keel pounds on
the remorseless sand; hear how the waves
thunder on the deck above, as though to
crush the trembling fabric; listen to the
creaking Of the overstrained timbers The
water Is slowly rising yonder, where the
cabin floor is lowest Who are these that
crowd down the OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES
scantily clad, terror in their eyes, their
hands bleeding, their naked feet raw from
contact with the cruel ropesp One is an
aged gentlewoman who leans feebly on
thn CHI nf
hair streams over her brows, her dim eyes
look with mothers tender love on her
sons resolute young face. All these poor
creatures are chilled with exposure, weak
with suffering. Two of the women lead,
another carries a child. Better to drown
here, says one bitterly, ethan to freeze to
death OH deck" (Baxton does not hear
these words, but he sees the lips move and
knows what they are saying) Then the
little group huddles close together in the
gloom, the mothers gather their children
to their breasts, and one, an ancient gen
tlewoman, prays silently as she locks
hands with the STRIPPING. ~ pray thee, 0
Father, If it be thy will, take me and spare
him.
Now the pale lips of the woman are still,
her head sinks on her breast and the son
rises with the terrible cry (Baxton cannot
hear that cry, but he sees the mans awful
eyes and knows what he says, "My mother
is dead!' Then the waves pound harder
on the deck, the timbers shrink and creak
and groan, the fabric lifts and falls with
dull, terrible thuds-it is high tide-the
ship is breaking up. Although it is day
the cabin grows darker and darker. The
water rises higher. Baxton must save him
self. He staggers across the heaving floor
where mother and son lie dead in each
others arms, reaches the companionway,
gains the deck-and then, before him,
over the shattered bulwarks, to which
cling half q hundred miserable, drowning
creatures, looms a great towering wall of
gray green water. dashed to the mizzen
shrouds, the captain, trumpet in hand,
sees not the coming avalanche-his glance
rests only on the face that is emerging
from the mpanionway-Baxton's face.
Casting off the rope that holds him to this
place of safety, with livid stare and blaz-
ing eye, he points straight at Baxton.
"See, see he cries, the murderer Bax-
ton! Curses on you-curses on YOU
cursesp" In second it is over. The mon
strous hill of WATER the double wave that
marks the flood tide, strikes the shattered
ship full, fair blow, mounts as high as
the yardarm, clear over the decks, skaters
the weakened hull to fragments and bears
down mast and bowsprit in one common
ruin, amid an awful grinding and crush
ing and splinterlng Of timbers. Then
rises great shrek that pierces to heaven
over the tumult of the sea (Baxton cannot
hear that shrek, but he feels it), followed
by the boiling seethe Of waters, and the
wave passes on, leaving naught to tell the
fate of the Bucephalus save few scattered
spars, few battered corpses (ghastly play
things of the tide) and-that is all.
The following is from The Daily Record
Of April %, 1895:
"A strange accident happened at Coffin
Beach on Friday last. Mr.. Clarence Bax-
ton, we'll known New Yorker, went
down on Thursday for bit of snipe shoot
ing, expecting to return that night. Pre-
vented from doing so by the storm, he
sought refuge in fisherman's cabin on
the beach, where the life patrol left him
at 10 O'Clock in the evening, comfortably
housed and provided with light and fuel.
The tide rose to an extraordinary height
during the night, $50 much SO that the food
wave las the last wave of the high tide is
called) swept clear over the sand dunes
that line the beach, overwhelmed the cab
In and swept it out to sea, carrying with
1t the unfortunate gentleman, whose body
was cast up on the shore by the returning
tide next morning. Not vestige Of the
cabin remained save the tigurehead Of
ship which formed a part OF the structure.
1t Is curious to note that the succeeding
ebb tide, which was an extremely low one,
exposed upon the beach the hull Of large
ship, supposed to be the remains of the
clipper Bucephalus, which was wrecked on
the sands some 40 years ago. The deceased
was the son Of the late Fl. B. Baxton,
prominent merchant Of this city. Van
ity.