“Come on, Marjorie, let’s have a race.”
The Dolphins answered to the slightest pull at the reins, and the children hadn’t the least fear; so, getting into a line, they waited for their friend the thin fish to come up and give them the signal to start.
CHAPTER VII.
THE HUMAN RACE.
The little thin fish seemed to be a long while catching them up, and, while they were waiting, Marjorie espied a curious figure poking about among the seaweed a short distance away from them.
“I wonder what it is!” she cried, and the children dismounted from the Dolphins, and, tying them by the reins to some coral stumps, so that they could not swim away, they half walked and half swam over to where Marjorie had first noticed the creature, whatever it was.
“Why, it’s a man!” cried Dick, as they drew nearer, and could distinguish him more clearly.
He was a wretched-looking old fellow, with a heavy sack upon his back, and was clothed only in a ragged old garment, which scarcely reached to his knees.