"You--were--right!"

He fell back and closed his 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