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 Edmund was assured that even when winter, which was now approaching, stripped the last leaf from the trees, the Dragon could not be seen from the river.

Her masts were lowered, and bundles of brushwood were hung along her side so as to prevent the gleam of black paint being discerned through the trees.
The entrance to the stream was filled up to a width of three or four feet, and the new work turfed with coarse grass similar to that which grew beside it.