I Classici Del | Fumetto Nr 01 Corto Maltese

They are intercepted by a sleek British schooner. Aboard is , a pale, red-haired archaeologist with the eyes of a starving hawk. She is financed by a secret committee of London bankers who want the Serpent’s Egg to control the new oil routes in Persia.

“A German U-boat,” Rasputin whispers. “The U-196 . It vanished in ’18. But three months ago, a Malay pearl diver found it. Not on the seafloor, Corto. Inside a cave on a cliffside. A hundred meters above the water.”

He smiles. It is enough.

The night of the perigee arrives. The sea recedes like a held breath, revealing a staircase of black coral leading up a sheer cliff face. The air hums with an invisible pressure. Compasses spin like drunkards.

“The U-boat carries a cargo that was never on any manifest,” Rasputin insists. “The Serpent’s Egg . A celestial chronometer built by Nikola Tesla for the Austro-Hungarian navy. It can manipulate local magnetic fields. With it, a man could steer ships onto reefs, collapse bridges, or… lift a U-boat onto a mountain.” I Classici del Fumetto Nr 01 Corto Maltese

He hands it to the boy.

One night, the boy, , asks Corto: “Why do you help people who betray you?” They are intercepted by a sleek British schooner

Rasputin is pinned by a falling torpedo. Lady Venetia clings to a stalactite. Only Corto stands calm, holding Achille under one arm.