READ THE NOVEL- Chapters 1-31 - ERBzine

Tarzan on Mars
cating with Mars—"
Gridley smiled, albeit with a certain element of restraint.
"I see Jules Carter has told you everything," he answered.
"But—I hesitated connecting your quest with Mars until you
had seen a few things with your own eyes. Until you
understood—"
Tarzan withdrew an envelope from his inside coat
pocket. From the envelope he withdrew two pieces of paper.
One was a hand-written note. The other was a photostat. He
laid them on Gridley's desk.
"I know all the rest of it," he said, "but this is enough.
Gridley leaned forward and picked up the photostat.
Suddenly, he tensed, excited—
"Why, this is a copy of—of something that was written
by—"
Tarzan nodded, finally seating himself on the edge of a
chair beside the desk. "By John Carter, himself," he said.
"During one of his visits here he spent some time compiling
data for his nephew. Read that photostatic copy. It pertains to
the diadem."
And this is what Gridley read, written in the hand of John
Carter, Warlord of Mars:
The highest rank to which a member of the priesthood
of the entirely evil and now fully discredited religious order
of Therns could attain was the so-called Tenth Cycle, than
which there was none higher save that of the dark and
soulless false goddess, Issus, herself.
The distinguishing mark of the Hekkador, or Father of
Therns, was that rarest of all jeweled artifacts on Barsoom,
the Holy Diadem, worn on a golden circlet about the sacred
yellow wig which invariably covered the Thern's completely
bald head. In addition to being wrought of precious gold and
platinum and certain alloys known only to the more esoteric
Thern artificers, it was set with many beautiful jewels,
principal among which was that rarest of all gems in the
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