The Adventures of Tintin (16 page)

“It’s not over,” Captain Haddock said softly. “It was never over.” He cradled his hat in his hands. Tintin could almost imagine it as a great felt tricorne Sir Francis would have worn.

“I don’t understand,” Tintin said. He picked more hay out of his hair and shook his shirt. “Who’s after your blood?”

“Sakharine!” Captain Haddock said.

“Sakharine!” Tintin repeated. He was shocked! But now Captain Haddock’s delirious description of Red Rackham’s face made sense. Nose like the blade of a knife, indeed. Angular face, yes.

“He’s Red Rackham’s descendant,” Captain Haddock said. “He means to finish it.”

“That’s why he did it,” Tintin said after a while. Lieutenant Delcourt and the soldiers came running around the side of the storeroom in a group; the soldiers began to disperse when they saw that the story was over. Delcourt waited politely for Tintin and Captain Haddock to finish their conversation.

Haddock looked confused. Again. “Did what?”

“Sank his own ship! Sir Francis sent that treasure to the bottom of the sea. He’d be damned before he let Red Rackham have it.”

“And he was,” Captain Haddock said.

“But he couldn’t let it lie,” Tintin went on.

“No!”

“He left a clue! Three clues wrapped in a riddle, concealing a secret. But only a true Haddock will be able to solve it. That’s why they need you.”

Still confused, Captain Haddock said, “What secret?”

“The location of one of the greatest sunken treasures in all of history,” Tintin said. Despite himself, he was getting more and more excited. What a story this would be! The secret of the
Unicorn
was proving to be an even better mystery than he could have imagined. Tintin thought this might turn out to be his best adventure yet . . . if they could manage to intercept Sakharine before he got the third model ship. They had to get to Bagghar as quickly as possible. It was even more urgent now.

Finally Captain Haddock caught on to Tintin’s train of thought. “The wreck of the
Unicorn
,” he said. “He means to steal it. The third scroll. Billions of blue blistering barnacles, I swear as the last of the Haddocks that I’ll find that treasure before he does!”

Together they leaped out of the hay pile, nearly stepping on Snowy, who barked in protest. “To Bagghar,” Tintin said.

“To Bagghar!” Captain Haddock spat in his palm, and they shook hands.

It was time to see if Lieutenant Delcourt could find them a couple of fast camels.

THREE DAYS LATER
, they crested a sand dune just past the fabled wells of Kefheir, where they had watered their camels—and themselves. Below them spread the ancient city of Bagghar. Its white towers and minarets gleamed in the sun. From their perspective, Tintin and Captain Haddock could see the port . . . and in the harbor, close to the piers, they could see the
Karaboudjan
docked.

“He’s here,” Tintin said. “I knew it.” Snowy barked in agreement from his perch on Tintin’s camel.

“But we’ve outsmarted you,
bashi-bazouk
,” Captain
Haddock
growled down at the ship. “You just wait.” Then he turned to Tintin. “So, what do we do?”

The city of Bagghar was laid out between the harbor and the hills, crowded in the shadow of Sheik Omar Ben Salaad’s grand palace and the enormous dam above it. “The sheik cut off the water supply to the town when he built the dam,” Captain Haddock explained to Tintin. “Now he sells his people the water, but says he keeps taxes low.”

“That sneak,” Tintin said. He studied the layout of Bagghar, seeing the single winding road that led from the palace down into what must have once been a riverbed. But since Ben Salaad had taken the river away, it was a dry canyon between the base of the dam and the inland edge of Bagghar proper. From there to the ocean, a canal ran away from the winding riverbed straight through the middle of town.

The palace itself was an extraordinary piece of architecture. It was terraced right into the steep bluffs at the base of the dam and surrounded by lush gardens, in contrast to the parched redness of the hills around it. Its white stone walls gleamed fiercely in the Moroccan sun, and from the tops of its many towers flew Ben Salaad’s personal flag. A thousand people could have slept on its grounds, thought Tintin, and had room to stretch out and roll over. In contrast, the main part of Bagghar was a jumble and tangle of low buildings, jostling for space in the lowlands between the palace and the brilliant blue-green water of Bagghar’s excellent harbor.

He couldn’t believe that Ben Salaad would steal water from his own people and sell it back to them. If there was any justice in the world, they would be able to do something about it—but that was another story, for another time. Tintin had to focus on the story at hand, and that was the secret of the
Unicorn
.

“What’s the plan, Tintin?” Captain Haddock asked.

Tintin shook his head. “We don’t have enough information to make a good plan yet,” he said. “We need to look around first.”

“Then let’s get looking!”

Tintin and Captain Haddock rode down into town quickly. They needed to get there before Sakharine could establish spies in the town to keep watch for them. As they rode through the outskirts of Bagghar, people called to them, thinking that because they had come through the desert they must be traders. Also, everyone seemed to be looking for water. Signs all over town proclaimed
CONSERVE WATER
in all the languages Tintin and Captain Haddock could read and in some they couldn’t. As they took in the parched surroundings, a sharp-looking man with a pointy mustache and a wad of bills in his hand stepped out from an enclosure full of camels. Over the fence was a sign printed in several languages:
USED CAMELS CHEAP AND RELIABLE!

“You sell your camel,
effendi
?” the camel dealer asked. He riffled the bills in his hand.

“Make me an offer,” Captain Haddock replied. They quickly sold the tired camels in exchange for some cash.

From there, walking through the streets, they cut toward the port looking for Sakharine or his men. Snowy sniffed for familiar scents, but everything was foreign to him. He sneezed at the dust. Many of the people in Bagghar wore scarves over their faces, which made them difficult to identify or recognize, but Tintin had lots of experience identifying people. He quickly suspected that he had seen some of the same people more than once.

Everywhere, there were long lines of townsfolk waiting to get water from pumps, standing in line for hours just for a splash of the precious liquid. Every square in the town had a pump, but not much water came out of them. Tintin
couldn’t
believe such hardship existed when there was a large reservoir not five miles away. Looking at the townspeople of Bagghar, anyone would have thought that the nearest river was a hundred miles away.

“Captain, we must do something about this,” he said.

“Aye, lad,” Captain Haddock said agreeably as they walked through a plaza. At its center stood a dry fountain. Children played in it, but it had been a long time since any of them had splashed around. Tintin’s mind spun as he thought up plan after plan and then discarded each one. How could they get into the palace and escape with the third
Unicorn
?

And even if they did, how was he going to reclaim his wallet, which held the first scroll?

They walked close to a long breakwater that jutted out from the waterfront. At the end of it, the
Karaboudjan
lay at anchor, but there was no sign of Sakharine, Allan, Tom, or anyone else from the ship. “Captain,” Tintin said. “We know they’re going to see the Milanese Nightingale, or else why would they have had the brochure in the radio room? Maybe we should head toward the palace.”

Turning away from the harbor, they plunged back into the town of Bagghar. They saw thirsty people everywhere . . . but they did not see any of the people they were looking for.

Captain Haddock was complaining as they reached a main square again. The dry fountain was ahead of them, and beyond it the main bazaar of Bagghar. The palace loomed to their left, in the shadow of the immense dam. “They could be anywhere!” Captain Haddock said.

Tintin leaned close to him and said, “Don’t look now, but we’re being followed.”

A conspiratorial expression came over Captain Haddock’s face. They kept walking, and he slowly glanced behind him. “Ah,” he said, facing forward again. “So we are.”

They cut through the marketplace toward the palace of Ben Salaad. “Action?” Tintin suggested.

“Why, yes,” Captain Haddock agreed. “Action is most definitely called for.”

They ducked into an alley leading away from the main open bazaar and quickly stepped inside an open doorway. Snowy peered around the door and then backed up between them, thumping his tail. “That means they’re coming,” Tintin explained to Captain Haddock.

“Good dog,” Captain Haddock said.

A moment later the first of the two hooded figures whom Tintin had spotted came strolling past the doorway. Tintin stuck out a foot and tripped him. The man sprawled onto the dusty ground, and the second man fell, too!

Tintin jumped out, clenching his fists. “Why are you following us?” he demanded.

Captain Haddock took things a step further, leaping on both of them and pounding them into the ground quite ferociously. “Who are you working for?” he yelled, as if either of them could have answered while he flailed away with his fists.

Their hoods slipped back at the same time, and Tintin could have fallen over from surprise when he saw two identical bowler hats!

“Captain, stop!” he cried, wading into the struggle to pull Haddock back. “It’s Thompson and Thomson!” The hats fell away in the rumpus, and Captain Haddock managed to step on both of them.

He helped the battered detectives to their feet. “Not so loud,” Thomson said. He punched his hat back into shape and resettled it on his head.

Thompson’s hat was also a bit crumpled. He popped the worst of the dimples out and added, “We’re in disguise.”

Tintin nodded. “So I see. You got the message I sent from the ship?”

Counting on them had been part of his plan from the moment he saw the wireless transmitter on board the
Karaboudjan
. He was glad to see the two Interpol detectives here in
Bagghar—
now they could even the odds a little bit. Thompson and Thomson were bumblers sometimes, but when the chips were down, Tintin knew he could count on them.

“Yes, well, bit of a long story there,” Thompson said.

“The upshot is we caught the pickpocket, retrieved your wallet, and hopped on the next plane to Bagghar,” Thomson said.

The detectives exchanged glances then, and Tintin had a feeling there was more to the story than they were letting on.

“Yes,” Thompson said. “That pocket picker has picked his last pocket.” With a flourish, he produced Tintin’s wallet. “Don’t worry. He didn’t take any money.”

“It’s not the money I’m worried about,” Tintin said as he opened the wallet, turning away from everyone to see for himself whether the parchment was safe. His fingers dipped into the interior flap where he had hidden it . . . and there it was!

Turning back to Captain Haddock and the detectives, he said, “The odds are even!”

As they walked back toward the marketplace, Tintin saw a large banner hanging above the square. All of a sudden he had a plan. “The Milanese Nightingale,” he said.

The others looked up and read the banner, which was mostly occupied by a dramatic portrait of the Milanese Nightingale herself. Apparently, she was an opera singer; her actual name was Bianca Castafiore. Tintin thought it was a very dramatic portrait. Below it, the banner announced her appearance at the great hall of Ben Salaad’s palace. She was to sing that very evening!

“Ahh, what a dish,” Captain Haddock said.

“Quite,” Thompson and Thomson agreed.

Tintin had other things on his mind. The thirsty townspeople of Bagghar stood in line for water from a pump near the empty fountain, talking about the concert. It sounded as if every one of them was planning to go. The scene at Ben Salaad’s palace would be chaotic—the perfect time to pull off a heist of a valuable antique like the third model
Unicorn
.
But what about the display case?
Tintin wondered. How did Sakharine propose to get through the bulletproof glass?

Again, he looked up at the banner and its portrait of the Milanese Nightingale. “That’s his secret weapon?” he asked incredulously. But the more he thought about it, the more sense it made. He was beginning to believe he knew how Sakharine planned to capture the third model
Unicorn
. Tintin had to get there first.

Sakharine probably had friends in the palace and a posse of armed thugs who would do anything he wanted. Tintin had the two detectives, Captain Haddock, and Snowy.

The difference, however, was that Tintin was chasing the mystery. He knew there was treasure to be found, but he didn’t care too much about it. It was the mystery that drew him onward. Where was this treasure? What was the secret of the
Unicorn
?