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 for what had happened.  He ought to have turned the key on each before going out on deck.

His consternation was very great.  The steward, who was paddling about all the time with swabs, trying to dry out the flooded cuddy, heard him exclaim “Hallo!” in a startled and dismayed tone.  In the midst of his work the steward felt a sympathetic concern for the mate’s distress.

Captain Johns was secretly glad when he heard of the damage.  He was indeed afraid of his chief mate, as the sea-pilot had ventured to foretell, and afraid of him for the very reason the sea-pilot had put forward as likely.

Captain Johns, therefore, would have liked very much to hold that black mate of his at his mercy in some way or other.  But the man was irreproachable, as near absolute perfection as could be.  And Captain Johns was much annoyed, and at the same time congratulated himself on his chief officer’s efficiency.

He made a great show of living sociably with him, on the principle that the more friendly you are with a man the more easily you may catch him tripping; and also for the reason that he wanted to have somebody who would listen to his stories of manifestations, apparitions, ghosts, and all the rest of the imbecile spook-lore.  He had it all at his fingers’ ends; and he spun those ghostly yarns in a persistent, colourless voice, giving them a futile turn peculiarly his own.

“I like to converse with my officers,” he used to say.  “There are masters that hardly ever open their mouths from beginning to end of a passage for fear of losing their dignity.  What’s that, after all—­this bit of position a man holds!”