His subconscious mind created this imaginary friend that no one sees, but himself. The young Captain was stressed and sleep deprived as his strangeness, which had made [him] sleepless the last few days (222). Stress and lack of sleep can lead to illusions. During that night he saw a pale floating faint flash of phosphorescent light, which seemed to issue suddenly from the naked body of a man (223). The young Captains lack of sleep and the massive amount of stress causes him to see the created image of Leggatt. The author describes Leggatt as someone who is supernatural and ghostlike because the sight of human beings at night does not light up or appears fluorescent. The naked man was a rebirth of the young Captain, with the traits that he wanted to exemplify. Those traits that Leggatt embodies were created by the young Captain. As he stares at Leggatt he sees that he has been faced by [his] own reflection in the depth of a somber and immense mirror (226). The mirror is a spiritual and physical reflection of him where Leggatt is the spiritual and the young Captain as the physical being. .
Leggatt is in circumstances where no one has ever seen him, except the young Captain. When the steward came to clean and should have seen Leggatt, but his reason was he managed to squat [himself] down in the bath (247). The steward should have seen Leggatt because he has been suspicious of extra noise around that young Captains place. The young Captain could see nothing except a faint phosphorescent flash revealing the glassy smoothness of the sleeping surface (254). When Leggatt jumped off the ship nobody hears or sees him. The young Captain saw the faint phosphorescent flash again, which is the supernatural being of Leggatt that only he can see. When humans jump in water it creates a noticeable sound and creates ripple of waves. The young Captain acknowledges that he could not, [he] think, have met him by a direct lie, also for psychological (not moral) reasons (239).
