Second story of the Seven Seals saga.
Furio, Vittorio and professor Valli follow the quest for the Dragon's Seven Seals from Egypt to Mosul, in Iraq, to find the third ring: it is kept at Sheikh Adi, in the temple of the Devil Worshippers, and Martin and Stevens are one step behind them all the way.
Stevens and Martin, hidden among the rocks of the plateau, watch Furio come out of the tomb with the ring. Back at the camp Valli sets the two Seals side by side and reads the signs across them: "THE DRAGON... WATCHES... ITS... LAIR..." - and there the sentence breaks off. All seven rings will be needed to complete it. Valli remembers that the third should be at Sceikh Adi, in the temple of the Devil Worshippers; Martin, who has brought Stevens up to the tent, knows the place and the priest of the temple, and the two set off at once to get their hands on the ring first.
Furio has himself flown over Sheikh Adi and drops by parachute on a clouded night, counting on landing unseen. Martin and Stevens hear the engines, and the sectarians take him the moment he touches ground. Brought before Sheikh Nasir, he is told he will bitterly regret trying to violate the temple of the Sacred Peacock, and Yazmet is ordered to heat the irons. What saves him is the executioner's own brutality: tearing the shirt from Furio's chest uncovers the medallion that Wang, before dying, begged him always to wear - the Sign of the Dragon. Nasir stops the torture, has the ruined sanctuary opened to him, and after a long search Furio presses one feather of the peacock's right wing, the wing springs open, and the third ring of the Ming is in his hand. The Sheikh tells him his mission is over; Furio answers that it has only begun. Martin and Stevens have already flown to Mossul to deal with Valli and Vittorio, and Furio rides for the city after them. At the Hotel Majestic the two bandits take the room next to his friends' and settle down to wait for the night.
Martin and Stevens have themselves given room 129 at the Majestic, next to the Italians', and say nothing: they want it to be a surprise. Furio reaches Mossul, has an Arab sheikh's costume brought to him and books in unrecognised, noting the numbers of both rooms. That night a silenced pistol puts two bullets into the figures lying in his friends' beds - and the figures are dummies. Furio is already behind Martin with a compressed-air pistol; a jet of ammonia gas takes the bandit full in the face, and a second drops Stevens on the landing. The hotel wakes, the Squadra Mobile is called out, and the two come round in time to run: a laundry van, a police car rammed, revolver shots, and they are gone into the night. In the room, Valli finishes translating the three rings read together - "THE DRAGON WATCHES OVER ITS LAIR... IN THE TEMPLE OF THE LADY" - and there the text stops again. A telephone call from the police sends the three to the aerodrome, but they arrive just as the bandits' aircraft lifts off, and Stevens turns the machine gun on the car below.
Enrico Bagnoli, who was in charge of the graphic design, drew inspiration from the great Alex Raymond.
This story is reprinted after the war, as an appendix to Audace Furio Almirante from N. 28/40 (1946), where the hero is renamed as Italian-American Tony Brelli and the last 4 pages (which in original where drawn by Franco Donatelli instead of Enrico Bagnoli) are redrawn and shortened to 2 pages now by Nino Catania.
