`You are right, I do believe, Ernest,' said I, `though I think your imagination only can distinguish the gunshot wounds among all the pecking and tearing of the voracious birds there. Just look, boys, at those terrific jaws, beneath the strangely projecting snout. See the rows upon rows of murderous teeth, and thank God we were delivered from them! Let us try if we can induce these greedy birds to spare us a bit of the shark's skin; it is extremely rough, and when dry may be used like a file.'
Ernest drew the ramrod from his gun, and charged so manfully into the crowd, that striking right and left he speedily killed several, whilst most of the others took to flight. Fritz detached some broad strips of skin with his knife, and we returned towards the boat.
Perceiving with satisfaction that the shore was strewn with just the sort of boards and planks I wanted, I lost no time in collecting them; and, forming a raft to tow after us, we were in a short time able to direct our course homeward, without visiting the wreck at all.
As we sailed along, extremely well pleased with our good fortune, Fritz, by my direction, nailed part of the shark's skin flat on boards to dry in the sun and the rest on the rounded mast.
`Will that be a good idea, father?' inquired he, `it will be quite bent and crooked when it hardens.'
`That is just what I want it to be,' said I, `we may happen to find it useful in that form as well as flat. It would be beautiful shagreen* with which we could smooth and polish wood.'
* Rough leather used like sandpaper
`I thought,' remarked Ernest, `that shagreen was made from asses' hides.'
`And you thought rightly,' said I. `The best shagreen is prepared in Turkey, Persia, and Tartary, from the skins of horses and asses. In these skins, the roughness is produced artificially; while the skin is newly flayed and still soft, hard grains of corn are spread on the under surface, and pressed into it as it dries. These grains are afterward removed, and the roughness imparted to the appearance of the skin remains indelibly; shagreen is useful in polishing joiners' work, and it is made in France from the rough skin of a hideous creature called the angel-fish.'
`Angel-fish!' exclaimed Fritz; `what a name to give to anything "hideous," father!'