READ THE NOVEL- Chapters 1-31 - ERBzine

Tarzan on Mars
be held much longer. He cannot be killed, even if he were
dismembered entirely."
Tarzan turned then and nimbly climbed through the
opening. He paused, looking down the face of the Escarpment
into a dizzying abyss. Half a mile below him was the Lake of
Darkness, half enshrouded by mists arising out of the great
whirlpool at one end of it. Directly beneath him, only fifty feet
down, was an ancient balcony. His ladder of straps reached
only thirty feet of the distance, but he knew that he could
drop the remaining twenty feet with safety, thanks to the
lesser gravity of Barsoom.
He looked back into the dungeon. "Now," he said, quietly,
to Kar Komak, "prove that you can escape, for if you do not,
that poor dumb freak may yet destroy you in spite of your
mentality."
For answer, Kar Komak looked strangely off into
nothingness. "Until we meet again, then, Tarzan," he said,
tensely. "Good luck!"
In the next instant, the Lotharian disappeared into thin
air, and with him went not only his phantom bowmen but the
arrows in Thum's chest. The monster looked down at himself
in uncomprehending amazement. Then he roared out a triumphant
challange and charged the window.
Tarzan waited no longer. With the swift agility of an ape,
he swung down the straps toward the balcony. Yet, hardly had
he commenced his descent when he heard the bars of the
window above him crack loose from their weakened anchoring,
and he saw Thum's hideous bulk lunging through.
No sooner had the latter added his huge weight to that of
the apeman's than the straining buckles at the window parted.
Tarzan remembered hearing the prisoners above him cry out
in dismay, and then he was falling outward into the great
abyss, with Thum tumbling after him—down and down,
swiftly, toward the Lake of Darkness, half a mile below.
Instinctively, he twisted his body in the air, seeking to
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