READ THE NOVEL- Chapters 1-31 - ERBzine

Tarzan on Mars
that he so ardently seeks the past."
"What do you mean?" Gridley asked, uncomprehendingly.
"Come!" she said. "I will show you."
They took to horseback and, well armed, rode out from
the encampment toward a low ridge of hills where the jungles
began. It was early evening, and a full tropical moon was
rising. Beyond the ridge, Gridley knew, was the Madre de
Dios River, one of the headwater tributaries of the Amazon,
where Tarzan had amused himself several times with an
Indian dug-out canoe, fighting rapids and whirlpools in a
manner which would have earned any ordinary man the
epithet of fool.
Gridley and Meriem topped the ridge, finally, a mile and
a half downstream from the camp, and there she pointed out
to him a scene which he would never forget. At their feet, the
ridge sank abruptly toward a basin densely overgrown with
the low, scrubby jungle that is typical of the Bolivian montana.
Beyond this growth was the broad moonlit band of the
river, and in between was a brief expanse of grassland and
sand. It was there, on the river's strand, that he saw the two,
father and son. They had just emerged from the water after
a vigorous swim, both of their magnificent bodies gleaming in
the rays of the moon.
"My God!" he exclaimed. "Swimming at night, too! That
water is infested with piranhas!"
"They have known worse dangers," said Meriem,
pensively.
"We must call them at once," Gridley insisted.
"Yes. You are right. But do you know what it means to
put an end to this moment in their lives?" she nodded toward
the two below. "It isn't just a goodbye between father and son.
It is an adieu, forever, to a world that Bwana loved and taught
Korak to love. And I, too, have known and loved it, so I can
understand. This is the jungle again. The tropic warmth of it
exudes a magic elixir that changes the very chemistry of the
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