A bad quarter-of-an-hour [by Barcroft H. Boake, 28 May 1892]

[Editor: This article, by Barcroft Boake, was published in The Bulletin (Sydney, NSW), 28 May 1892.]

A bad quarter-of-an-hour.*

I stood on the gallows the other day and read — neatly painted on a beam — the names of those men whom a well-meaning Government has thence helped on their way to the happy hunting grounds. Unfortunately, it was daylight at the time of my visit, otherwise I am convinced that I should have been vouchsafed an opportunity of comparing notes with one or more of those gentlemen who, like myself, have enjoyed the advantages of a short shrift and a long rope.

I have had what the author of “Our Mutual Friend” calls “a turn-up with death” at various periods of a somewhat chequered existence, but never was the contest so prolonged, or the result so doubtful, as on the following occasion.

Never mind the why, when, or how of the matter, let it suffice that the noose tightened around my throat and severed my connection with the outer world. I no longer possessed a body, nothing was left of me but my head, and that reposed in the centre of a vast cycloramic enclosure whose walls — inscribed with the names and signs of the various arts and sciences — spun round with a waving, snakelike motion that made my eyes throb with a violent pain, nor could I turn them away, hypnotised as I was by the giddy horror of that resistless velocity.

As I stared at those flying columns of dancing figures I was overwhelmed by a sense of the inutility of man’s existence; I perceived the absurdity of his aspirations and the poverty of his knowledge. I reviewed the progress of the centuries — not mentally, but actually — inscribed in detail upon the moving walls of that amphitheatre, and then, just as the triumphant thought came to me that I was about to be vouchsafed a peep into futurity, something snapped, the light died away, and I felt myself sinking down, down, down.

* * *

I was on board a ferry-boat which lay near the Milson’s Point wharf — the old one, where, as a child, I used to watch for my father. I knew perfectly what had happened; we had crashed into one of the outstanding piers, and were sinking fast. I could hear the wash of the waves as they danced over the sponson and broke on the deck, and found myself struggling for life among a mad crowd of shrieking women and shouting men. Suddenly the clank of the engines ceased, and with a scream I leaped toward the land, just in time, for the boiler burst with a roar, scattering boat and passengers to the four winds.†

* * *

I was lying on the floor; friends were round me rubbing my hands and dashing water over my face. I knew what had happened — I was dying; the sword had fallen at last. The doctor always said my heart was affected, now I knew him to be right. Was this Death? How strange it felt to be going, going. “Oh! but I didn’t want to die, I wouldn’t die! I hadn’t said good-bye to Jessie. Where is she? quick! quick! Oh, I can’t breathe, what’s pressing my chest, let me up. Oh! oh!” and I came to life.

They cut me down in the nick of time. It was only a matter of seconds; I was so far on my journey to the ether world that it took half an hour of rubbing and pumping to recall me to earth. They tell me that my first words were singularly appropriate to the occasion; as I opened my eyes I smiled and murmured cheerfully, “Ain’t I a fool?” an opinion of my conduct which I still retain.

The foregoing account of my short excursion to the debatable land ’twixt life and death reads tamely enough on paper, and in fact has but one very questionable recommendation, that of truth.

BARCROFT H. BOAKE.

* Found among the papers of the late Barcroft Boake, who recently committed suicide by hanging.

† In his letter describing the occurrence at the time he says that here insensibility intervened. The accident which so nearly proved fatal was due to “sky-larking” when about 20 years of age. The foregoing appears to have been written about six weeks ago, after having paid a visit of inspection to Darlinghurst Gaol. In view of the manner of his sad end, the sketch possesses some scientific interest.

Source:
The Bulletin (Sydney, NSW), 28 May 1892, p. 11, column 4

[Editor: Changed “what s pressing” to “what’s pressing”. Changed the single quotation mark after “let me up. Oh! oh!” to a double quotation mark.]