READ THE NOVEL- Chapters 1-31 - ERBzine

Tarzan on Mars
"Then we have arrived none too soon," commented
Tarzan.
Thum overheard their remarks, and he laughed derisively.
"What difference does it make to you?' he bellowed.
"You have a space reserved for you in one of the dungeons of
the Escarpment—and there you will await the pleasure of
Tharos Pthan, who is Tario."
"The proof of that," retorted Kar Komak, "rests with
Issus."
"No," sneered Thum, showing them both his mighty fist.
"This is proof enough—and the bolted door that will keep you
prisoner until Tario summons you before him!"
Tarzan chose to remain indifferent to the taunts of this
hideous synthetic monstrosity. Instead, he gazed fixedly at
the top of the Escarpment where Kar Komak had told him the
city of Zumor was located. It was there that he would find his
beloved wife, Jane Clayton. He trembled within himself to
think that once she had been separated from him by fortyeight
million miles of interplanetary space, and now only a
mile or two of physical distance lay between himself and her!"
Once seven years of time had separated them—and now, if
God willed it, only days, or even hours, lay between them.
Thum's bolted door, as they soon learned, was nothing
less than promised, for it was constructed of the impenetrable
material of the Escarpment, itself. The dungeon in which they
soon found themselves was large and occupied by half a dozen
other prisoners, but it differed from Kar Komak's former
prison chiefly in the matter of elevation. This one was but half
a mile above the Lake of Darkness, deep within the great
looming walls of the Valley where the sunlight seldom reached.
Above them the incredible mass of the Escarpment
towered fully two and a half miles into the sky. A single
barred window emitted the indirect light of day.
Tarzan's first act was to inspect the window and its bars.
He observed that the latter were thicker than those which he
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