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.

"Yes. Tell him I am coming."

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 iands. "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."

Bunter detached his hands from his face, and they hung on each side of
his chair as if dead. He looked broken in the dusky cabin.

"You don't say!" stammered out Captain Johns. "Turned white! Hold on a
bit! I'll light the lamp!"

When the lamp was lit, the startling phenomenon could be seen plainly
enough. As if the dread, the horror, the anguish of the supernatural
were being exhaled through the pores of his skin, a sort of silvery mist
seemed to cling to the cheeks and the head of the mate. His short beard,
his cropped hair, were growing, not black, but gray--alm