Poor Bunter moaned pitifully.
“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.
“Yes. Tell him I am coming.”
He thought: Could it be possible there had been another spiritual manifestation—in the daytime, too!