“Very good. I am fixed, then,” remarked Captain Johns. “All I say is that I am jolly glad not to be you, though I would have given almost anything for the privilege of personal communication with the world of spirits. Yes, sir, but not in that way.”
“It has made me feel twenty years older.”
Captain Johns retired quietly. He was delighted to observe this overbearing ruffian humbled to the dust by the moralizing agency of the spirits. The whole occurrence was a source of pride and gratification; and he began to feel a sort of regard for his chief mate.
It is true that in further interviews Bunter showed himself very mild and deferential. He seemed to cling to his captain for spiritual protection. He used to send for him, and say, “I feel so nervous,” and Captain Johns would stay patiently for hours in the hot little cabin, and feel proud of the call.
For Mr. Bunter was ill, and could not leave his berth for a good many days. He became a convinced spiritualist, not enthusiastically--that could hardly have been expected from him--but in a grim, unshakable way. He could not be called exactly friendly to the disembodied inhabitants of our globe, as Captain Johns was. But he was now a firm, if gloomy, recruit of spiritualism.
One afternoon, as the ship was already well to the north in the Gulf of Bengal, the steward knocked at the door of the captain's cabin, and said, without opening it:
“The mate asks if you could spare him a moment, sir. He seems to be in a state in there.”
Captain Johns jumped up from the couch at once.
He thought: Could it be possible there had been another spiritual manifestation--in the daytime, too!
He revelled in the hope. It was not exactly that, however. Still, Bunter, whom he saw sitting collapsed in a chair--he had been up for several days, but not on deck as yet--poor Bunter had something startling enough to communicate. His hands covered his face. His legs were stretched straight out, dismally.
“What's the news now?” croaked Captain Johns, not unkindly, because in truth it always pleased him to see Bunter--as he expressed it--tamed.
“News!” exclaimed the crushed sceptic through his hands. “Ay, news enough, Captain Johns. Who will be able to deny the awfulness, the genuineness? Another man would have dropped dead. You want to know what I had seen. All I can tell you is that since I've seen it my hair is turning white.”