Quotation from: The Gods of Mars

Written by: Edgar Rice Burroughs

CHAPTER XII

DOOMED TO DIE

For an instant I stood there before they fell upon me, but the
first rush of them forced me back a step or two. My foot felt for
the floor but found only empty space. I had backed into the pit
which had received Issus. For a second I toppled there upon the
brink. Then I too with the boy still tightly clutched in my arms
pitched backward into the black abyss.