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Burroughs, Edgar Rice, 1875-1950

"The Chessmen of Mars"

The palace itself was filled with life and
activity. Mounted warriors galloped through the corridors and up
and down the runways connecting adjacent floors. It seemed that
no one walked within the palace other than a few slaves.
Squealing, fighting thoats were stabled in magnificent halls
while their riders, if not upon some duty of the palace, played
at jetan with small figures carved from wood.
Turan noted the magnificence of the interior architecture of the
palace, the lavish expenditure of precious jewels and metals, the
gorgeous mural decorations which depicted almost exclusively
martial scenes, and principally duels which seemed to be fought
upon jetan boards of heroic size. The capitals of many of the
columns supporting the ceilings of the corridors and chambers
through which they passed were wrought into formal likenesses of
jetan pieces--everywhere there seemed a suggestion of the game.
Along the same path that Tara of Helium had been led Turan was
conducted toward the throne room of O-Tar the jeddak, and when he
entered the Hall of Chiefs his interest turned to wonder and
admiration as he viewed the ranks of statuesque thoatmen decked
in their gorgeous, martial panoply.


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