No other voices came to our ears and I followed the children into the rear room in which they had taken refuge. It was totally dark, except for what light found its way through its door, and was cramped and small and half filled by a Gallic bed. I had never seen a Gallic bed before. Such a bed is made like the body of a travelling-carriage or travelling litter, entirely encased in panelling, topped off with a sort of flat roof of panelling, and with sliding panels above the level of the cording, so that the occupants can shut themselves in completely; a structure which looks to a novice like a device for smothering its occupants, but which is a welcome retreat and shelter on cold, windy, winter nights, as I have learned by later experience. As this was my first sight of one I was amazed at it. Usually, as I learned later, such a bedstead is piled up with feather- beds, so that the occupant is much above the level of the top edge of the lower front on which the panels slide. But this bed was poorly provided with mattresses and I had to stare down into it to descry the children's mother, who lay like a corpse in a coffin, but half buried in bedding and quilts, only her face visible. She was certainly alive, for her breathing was loud and stertorous; but she was, quite certainly, unconscious. Between the shrieking children, who clung to the frame of the bed, I spoke to her and assured her that we were friends. She gave no sign of understanding me, of hearing me, of knowing of my presence; but my repeated assurances quieted the elder girl, who not only ceased screaming but endeavored to calm her little sister. Seeing her so sensible, I questioned the child. All I could learn from her was that her father had been away nearly ten days, her mother ill for five and insensible for three and their four slaves had run away the day before, taking everything they chose to carry off. I then examined the other room which had a similar bed in it, and in which, the child told me, she and her sister slept. She declared that she did not know her mother's name, that her father never called her anything but "mother"; she also declared that she did not know her father's name, her mother, always calling him "father," as she and her sister did. Her name was Prima and her sister's Secunda.