s eyes. Not a word more could Captain Johns
get out of him; and, the steward coming into the cabin, the skipper
withdrew.

But that very night, unobserved, Captain Johns, opening the door
cautiously, entered again the mate's cabin. He could wait no longer. The
suppressed eagerness, the excitement expressed in all his mean, creeping
little person, did not escape the chief mate, who was lying awake,
looking frightfully pulled down and perfectly impassive.

"You are coming to gloat over me, I suppose," said Bunter without
moving, and yet making a palpable hit.

"Bless my soul!" exclaimed Captain Johns with a start, and assuming a
sobered demeanour. "There's a thing to say!"

"Well, gloat, then! You and your ghosts, you've managed to get over a
live man."

This was said by Bunter without stirring, in a low voice, and with not
much expression.

"Do you mean to say," inquired Captain Johns, in awe-struck whisper,
"that you had a supernatural experience that night? You saw an
apparition, then, on board my ship?"

Reluctance, shame, disgust, would have been visible on poor Bunter's
countenance if the great part of it had not been swathed up in
cotton-wool and bandages. His ebony eyebrows, more sinister than ever
amongst all that lot of white linen, came together in a frown as he made
a mighty effort to say:

"Yes, I have seen."

The wretchedness in his eyes would have awakened the compassion of
any other man than Captain Johns. But Captain Johns was all agog with
triumphant excitement. He was just a little bit frightened, too. He
looked at that unbelieving scoffer laid low, and did not even dimly
guess at his profound, humiliating distress. He was not generally
capable of taking much part in the anguish of his fellow-creatures. This
time, moreover, he was excessively anxious to know what had happened.
Fixing his credulous eyes on the bandaged head, he asked, trembling
slightly:

"And did it--did it knock you down?"

"Come! am I the sort of man to be knocked down by a ghost?" protested
Bunter in a little stronger tone. "Don't you remember what you said
yourself the other night? Better men than me------Ha! you'll have to
look a long time before you find a better man for a mate of your ship."

Captain Johns pointed a solemn finger at Bunter's bedplace.

"You've been terrified," he said. "That's what's the matter. You've been
terrified. Why, even the man at the wheel was scared, though he couldn't
see anything. He