These last apparently believed more in religion than in science and their lectures were more like homilies.

Finally a scientific expedition was equipped and dispatched to settle the scholarly wrangle.

The members of the expedition found no “devil” but they learned a great deal about the “unknown person’s” goings (the older members insisted that the word “person” be changed for the word “creature”).

The newspapers carried the expedition’s report, which said;

“1. In several places on the beaches we examined we found narrow footprints of a distinct human shape. Though leading from and back to the sea, they might have been made by people from boats.

“2. The nets we examined had cuts of the type produced by sharp instruments.

They might have been caught on sharp underwater crags or twisted metalwork of wrecks.

“3. A report — brought to our attention-of a dolphin that had been carried by a storm ashore, well clear of the water, and dragged back into the sea by someone who had left behind what looked like clawed footprints, has been carefully looked into.

“We are fully satisfied that the dolphin in question had been restored to its element by some kind-hearted fisherman. Nor would this have been the only instance of kindness on the part of fishermen towards dolphins. It is common knowledge that dolphins in pursuit of fish sometimes help the fishermen in that they drive fish to the shallows inshore. The alleged claws of the footprints could have been the work of the witnesses’ imagination.

“4. The kid might have been brought by boat and slipped on board by some practical joker.”

The scientists had a lot more to say in their attempts to explain away the “devil’s doings”. They were convinced that no sea creature could have performed them.

But the scientists’ explanations did not satisfy everybody. They seemed insufficient even for some of the scientists.