Quotation from: The Gods of Mars

Written by: Edgar Rice Burroughs

"The scene you are witnessing now is but a repetition of what I
have seen enacted a score of times during the fifteen years I have
been a prisoner here. From time immemorial the black pirates of
Barsoom have preyed upon the Holy Therns.

"Yet they never carry their expeditions to a point, as one might
readily believe it was in their power to do, where the extermination
of the race of therns is threatened. It is as though they but
utilized the race as playthings, with which they satisfy their
ferocious lust for fighting; and from whom they collect toll in
arms and ammunition and in prisoners."