READ THE NOVEL- Chapters 1-31 - ERBzine

Tarzan on Mars
door could scarce restrain themselves from smiling. It was
merely diplomatic etiquette which kept them there, they told
themselves, for what assassin would dare to approach the
person of so mighty an adversary?
It was no assassin who materialized in the sleeping
chamber of Tars Tarkas, there in the very heart of the palace
of the Warlord of Barsoom, in Greater Helium, yet this most
likely of probabilities aroused the great Thark to action when
he discerned the fair-haired white man standing at the foot of
his couch.
Grasping the long sword which is as much a part of the
green man's bed as his sleeping furs, Tars Tarkas at once
leaped to his feet, almost grazing the arched ceiling of the
richly furnished room. His great hulk loomed ominously over
the rash intruder.
He raised his sword to strike, but as the stranger was
apparently unarmed but for a dagger he wore in his jeweled
harness, he hesitated. It was not honor, per se, so much as an
ages long code of combat which stayed his hand. According to
this code, no warrior might engage another—even an assassin—with
any weapon other than that which the adversary
chose to use.
But this strange white man did not even draw his puny
dagger!
"Who be you, stranger?" asked the green man menacingly.
"And what do you here in the private sleeping chambers
of Tars Tarkas, Jeddak of Thark? Your harness is not of
Helium, nor are you a red man. Though your skin is white,
you are not of the thern race, because well do I know by
experience that they are bald from birth! Nor is that the holy
yellow wig of the thern which you wear. Speak! Identify
yourself—and state your purpose here—or die!"
Neither did the intruder speak, nor did Tars Tarkas
strike the blow of certain death which he was preparing.
Instead, the keep blue eyes of the white man took hold of the
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