he left her rather brusquely at the last.
He got on board in good time, and produced the usual impression on the
mud-pilot in the broken-down straw hat who took the _Sapphire_ out of
dock. The river-man was very polite to the dignified, striking-looking
chief mate. "The five-inch manilla for the check-rope, Mr.--Bunter,
thank you--Mr. Bunter, please." The sea-pilot who left the "gem of
ships" heading comfortably down Channel off Dover told some of his
friends that, this voyage, the _Sapphire_ had for chief mate a man
who seemed a jolly sight too good for old Johns. "Bunter's his name.
I wonder where he's sprung from? Never seen him before in any ship
I piloted in or out all these years. He's the sort of man you don't
forget. You couldn't. A thorough good sailor, too. And won't old Johns
just worry his head off! Unless the old fool should take fright at
him--for he does not seem the sort of man that would let himself be put
upon without letting you know what he thinks of you. And that's exactly
what old Johns would be more afraid of than of anything else."

As this is really meant to be the record of a spiritualistic experience
which came, if not precisely to Captain Johns himself, at any rate to
his ship, there is no use in recording the other events of the passage
out. It was an ordinary passage, the crew was an ordinary crew, the
weather was of the usual kind. The black mate's quiet, sedate method of
going to work had given a sober tone to the life of the ship. Even in
gales of wind everything went on quietly somehow.

There was only one severe blow which made things fairly lively for all
hands for full four-and-twenty hours. That was off the coast of Africa,
after passing the Cape of Good Hope. At the very height of it several
heavy seas were shipped with no serious results, but there was a
considerable smashing of breakable objects in the pantry and in the
staterooms. Mr. Bunter, who was so greatly respected on board, found
himself treated scurvily by the Southern Ocean, which, bursting open the
door of his room like a ruffianly burglar, carried off several useful
things, and made all the others extremely wet.

Later, on the same day, the Southern Ocean caused the _Sapphire_ to
lurch over in such an unrestrained fashion that the two drawers fitted
under Mr. Bunter's sleeping-berth flew out altogether, spilling all
their contents. They ought, of course, to have been locked, and Mr.
Bunter had only to thank himself