out his threat; but he will not find
the task an easy one, we shall resist him to the last; and right glad
am I that I shall have the assistance of two of the Saxon thanes who
have so often inflicted heavy defeats upon these wolves of the sea.
Your vessel is a strange one, and differs from those that I have
hitherto seen, either Dane or Saxon. She is a sailing ship, and yet
appears to row very fast."

"She is built," Edmund said, "partly upon the design of King Alfred
himself, which were made from paintings he possessed of the war galleys
of Italy, which country he visited in his youth. They were carried out
by a clever shipwright of Exeter; and, indeed, the ship sails as well
as she rows, and, as the Danes have discovered to their cost, is able
to fight as well as she can sail and row. Had we been fairly out to sea
before the Danish fleet made its appearance we could have given a good
account of ourselves, but we were caught in a trap."

"I fear that if the Northmen surround the city your ship will be
destroyed."

"I was thinking of that," Edmund said, "and I pray you to let me have
some men who know the river higher up. There must assuredly be low
shores often overflowed where there are wide swamps covered with wood
and thickets, which the enemy would not enter, seeing that no booty
could be obtained there. The ship was built in such a spot, and we
could cut a narrow gap from the river and float her well in among the
trees so as to be hidden from the sight of any passing up the river in
galleys, closing up the cut again so that none might suspect its
existence."

"That could be done easily enough," the count said; "there are plenty
of spots which would be suitable, for the banks are for the most part
low and the ground around swampy and wooded. To-morrow I will tell off
a strong body of men to accompany you in your ship, and aid your crew
in their work."

Twenty miles up the Seine a suitable spot was found, and the crew of
the Dragon, with the hundred men whom the Count Eudes had lent for the
purpose, at once set about their work. They had but little trouble, for
a spot was chosen where a sluggish stream, some fifteen feet wide,
drained the water from a wide-spreading swamp into the river. The
channel needed widening but a little to allow of the Dragon entering,
and the water was quite deep enough to permit her being taken some
three hundred yards back from the river.

The trees and underwood were thick, and