READ THE NOVEL- Chapters 1-31 - ERBzine

Tarzan on Mars
XVIII
GODDESS OF THE SUN
IN a desolate wilderness of jagged, barren hills and
shadowed canyons, an aged traveler paused to gaze upon the
subject of a long and desperate search. He was one of those
rare red Martians who had escaped the warrior's blade and
the assassin's knife long enough to reach the latter portion of
his natural span of life. His hair was shot with gray and his
shoulders sagged a trifle to show the weight of time upon
him, but in his eyes there lived a bright flame of knowledge
and wisdom which only death, itself, might quench.
He lowered his radium rifle to the ground as though it
were his hiking staff, and his eyes narrowed, taking in the
details of a scene which was all too familiar now on Barsoom.
He might have been a travel weary observer of the ancient
Crusades, on Earth, standing above the passes into the Holy
Land, for there below him was a scene of battle which could
never have occurred save for the mystic element in man's
misguided soul.
At least, he told himself, had it not been for the old
religion of Issus there would never have arisen that strange
colony of the Lost People whom he saw now embattled with
an invading foe in the valley below him.
From all parts of the valley the able-bodied defenders
were streaming, tall green men and red and yellow men alike,
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