Every woman in her place would have put the same question.

Ever since Mother Eve's misadventure with the serpent in Paradise, women have cherished a deadly enmity toward the whole reptile family.
"Yes," was Aaron's reply, "there are snakes there." Manasseh drew a breath of relief, but this time he had mistaken his brother's meaning.
"We need not fear them, however," the elder made haste to add.

"We will build a fire and drive them out.

Our fowls, too, will be a still better protection for us; with their naked necks they will be taken for vultures by the snakes, and we shall have no trouble whatever." Manasseh now knew that dangers surrounded them, and that they must pass the night in the cave.

Aaron, however, put forth all his eloquence to depict the charms of the place, likening its cavernous depths to the groined arches of a cathedral, and telling how his ancestors had maintained themselves there for months at a time in the face of a besieging force.