Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
page 66 of 326 (20%)
causes as you or I might: those who do not live their allotted span
of life, one thousand years, when by the authority of custom they
may take their way in happiness through the long tunnel that leads
to Issus.

"Those who die before are supposed to spend the balance of their
allotted time in the image of a plant man, and it is for this
reason that the plant men are held sacred by the therns, since they
believe that each of these hideous creatures was formerly a thern."

"And should a plant man die?" I asked.

"Should he die before the expiration of the thousand years from
the birth of the thern whose immortality abides within him then the
soul passes into a great white ape, but should the ape die short
of the exact hour that terminates the thousand years the soul is
for ever lost and passes for all eternity into the carcass of the
slimy and fearsome silian whose wriggling thousands seethe the
silent sea beneath the hurtling moons when the sun has gone and
strange shapes walk through the Valley Dor."

"We sent several Holy Therns to the silians to-day, then," said
Tars Tarkas, laughing.

"And so will your death be the more terrible when it comes," said
the maiden. "And come it will--you cannot escape."

"One has escaped, centuries ago," I reminded her, "and what has
been done may be done again."

DigitalOcean Referral Badge