"And the demons have not interfered with you?"
"The demons knew better," Bertie laughed.
"They may not be powerful in the daytime," Dias said in an awed tone. "It is at night that they would be terrible."
"Well, Dias," Bertie said, "everyone knows that the demons cannot withstand the sign of the cross. All you have to do is to make a small cross, hold it up in front of you and say, 'Vade retro, Satanas!' and they will fly howling away."
"Seriously," Harry said, "you know it is all bosh about demons, Dias."
"But the church exorcises evil spirits. I have seen a priest go with candles and incense to a haunted house, and drive out the evil spirits there."
"That is to say, Dias, no spirits were ever seen there afterwards, and we may be very certain that no spirits were ever seen there before, though cowardly people might have fancied they saw them. However, to-morrow we shall get inside, and Bertie and I will stop there all night, and if we neither see nor hear anything of them you may be quite sure that there are none there."
"But the traditions say they have strangled many and torn them, señor; their bodies have been found in the daytime and carried off."
"It is quite possible that they were strangled and torn there, but you may be sure that it was the work not of demons, but of the men who were set to guard the place from intruders. Well, those men have gone. We found two skeletons, which must have been there at least a hundred years, perhaps a great deal more. They were lying on the stairs, the only way of getting into the place, and they would have been removed long ago if anyone had been passing in or out."
By this time they had arrived at the camp. "I knew you would come back all safe, señors," Donna Maria said triumphantly; "I told Dias so over and over again. But what have you seen?"