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conversation. Plus he was beginning to shake off the after-effects of whatever Allan had used to knock him out back at Labrador Street.
    Sakharine banged the bars of the cage with his cane, making Tintin and the two henchmen wince. The sound echoed through the hold, amplified by the metal walls and floor. “Oh, I am tired of your games,” Sakharine growled. “The scroll, from the
Unicorn
. A piece of paper like this.”
    He showed Tintin a curled bit of parchment nearly identical to the one that Tintin hoped was still in his stolen wallet. “You mean the poem,” Tintin said.
    “Yes!” Sakharine cried.
    “The poem written in Old English.”
    “Yes.”
    “It was inside a cylinder,” Tintin said.
    “Yes.”
    “Concealed in the mast.”
    “Yes,” Sakharine said through gritted teeth.
    Tintin finally shrugged. “I don’t have it.”
    Sakharine snapped his cane through the bars of the cage. Tom caught hold of the end, and as Sakharine pulled, a long, thin sword emerged from the cane. With a flick of his wrist, Sakharine pressed the tip of the sword into Tintin’s cheek.
    Uh-oh
, Tintin thought. He had enjoyed playing the joke on Sakharine, but now it didn’t seem like such a good idea.
    “You know the value of that scroll,” Sakharine said. “Why else would you take it?”
    Tintin realized something then. He did not fear Sakharine. If Sakharine had wanted Tintin dead, he would already be dead. And as long as he knew something Sakharine didn’t—in this case, the location of the parchment—Sakharine would have to keep him alive.
    “Two ships, two scrolls,” Tintin said. “Both part of a puzzle. You have one, you need the other. But that’s not it. There’s something else.”
    Now he was trying to draw Sakharine out. Tintin was a journalist and knew how to talk to people. There was a story here, and he wanted to know what part Sakharine played.
    And even if he never got a story out of it, how could he resist the mystery?
    Sakharine leaned in to press against the bars, holding the point of his sword to Tintin’s face. “I will find it, with or without your help,” he said menacingly. “You need to think about exactly how useful you are to me.”
    He stood up straight again, sheathing his sword and latching the cage. Then he used his cane to tap his way toward the door as Tom and Allan followed. “Stay the course!” Sakharine ordered. “We’ll deal with him on the way.”
    The three villains left, muttering to one another and slamming the door behind them—but just as they were shutting it, Snowy shot through the gap into the hold! He ran toward Tintin as the booming sound of the door being locked and bolted echoed through the chamber.
    “Snowy!” Tintin said. He looked toward the door, making sure that neither Sakharine nor his goons had noticed. Snowy slipped through the bars and licked his face. “It’s good to see you, too. See if you can chew through these ropes.”
    Snowy started gnawing at the knots near Tintin’s wrists, and Tintin started to formulate a plan. He wasn’t going to have much time; if Sakharine’s thugs returned, Tintin was sure he would never leave the ship alive.

SAKHARINE STOMPED FURIOUSLY up the stairs, pausing on a catwalk between the stairwell and his cabin door to make sure Tom and Allan knew what would be required. The huge tanker ship, named the
Karaboudjan
, rolled on the stormy seas, but no storm could match Sakharine’s temper when cocky adventurers meddled with his plans. He wished they were on a pirate ship so he could make someone walk the plank. Curse it, though—he needed the lad to talk first. He could walk the plank later, or suffer some other doom of Sakharine’s invention. There could be no question of Tintin leaving the
Karaboudjan
alive, and Sakharine was also determined to make the lad reveal the secret of the scroll’s location.
    Whatever it took.
    “He’s lying,” Sakharine said to Tom and Allan. “He must have the scroll. The question