“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 felt the supernatural.  You are punished for your incredulity, Mr. Bunter.  You were terrified.”

“And suppose I was,” said Bunter.  “Do you know what I had seen?  Can you conceive the sort of ghost that would haunt a man like me?  Do you think it was a ladyish, afternoon call, another-cup-of-tea-please apparition that visits your Professor Cranks and that journalist chap you are always talking about?  No; I can’t tell you what it was like.  Every man has his own ghosts.  You couldn’t conceive...”

Bunter stopped, out of breath; and Captain Johns remarked, with the glow of inward satisfaction reflected in his tone: 

“I’ve always thought you were the sort of man that was ready for anything; from pitch-and-toss to wilful murder, as the saying goes.  Well, well!  So you were terrified.”

“I stepped back,” said Bunter, curtly.  “I don’t remember anything else.”

“The man at the wheel told me you went backwards as if something had hit you.”

“It was a sort of inward blow,” explained Bunter.  “Something too deep for you, Captain Johns, to understand.  Your life and mine haven’t been the same.  Aren’t you satisfied to see me converted?”

“And you can’t tell me any more?” asked Captain Johns, anxiously.

“No, I can’t.  I wouldn’t.  It would be no use if I did.  That sort of experience must be gone through.  Say I am being punished.  Well, I take my punishment, but talk of it I won’t.”

“Very well,” said Captain Johns; “you won’t.  But, mind, I can draw my own conclusions from that.”

“Draw what you like; but be careful what you say, sir.  You don’t terrify me. You aren’t a ghost.”

“One word.  Has it any connection with what you said to me on that last night, when we had a talk together on spiritualism?”

Bunter looked weary and puzzled.

“What did I say?”

“You told me that I couldn’t know what a man like you was capable of.”

“Yes, yes.  Enough!”

“Very good.  I am fixed, then,” remarked Captain Johns.  “All I say is that I am jolly glad not to be you, though I would have given almost anything for the privilege of personal communication with the world of spirits.  Yes, sir, but not in that way.”

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.