READ THE NOVEL- Chapters 1-31 - ERBzine

Tarzan on Mars
XV
THE QUICK AND THE DEAD
IN that silent hour of the night which precedes the dawn,
in that lost island of time which seems inhabited more by the
spirits of the dead than by the living, Thuria beckoned her
brother, Cluros, to look upon the deserted city of Lothar. The
magnificent residences, public buildings and palaces gazed
sadly, with death hollowed eyes, at the broad, moonlit avenues
in which no creature stirred, at the city whose voice was
stilled by the dusty burden of the ages.
Gradually, however, there emerged a few details which
were incongruous to the changelessness of this sprawling
mausoleum of memory. For here and there along the avenues
the signs of a recent visitation could be seen. Here the
recumbent form of a dead green warrior, there a living thoat,
riderless, quietly grazing on the scarlet sward of the boulevard,
a broken lance dangling from its saddle.
And in the great plaza before the palace of the former
jeddak, smoldering fires licked at the remains of a once sleek
scout ship which bore on its crumbling bow the insignia of
Omean.
More noteworthy still was the fact that the tremendous
circular gate in the city's wall had been left open by the
departing Torquasian horde, and it was that motley, straggling
group of people who entered there in this still hour of the
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