Well, now I was “up against it” properly, with two heart-broken girls on my hands and two lovers vowing to have my life. I discussed the matter at length with Don Eduardo, explaining to him that, while I liked the young ladies very much indeed and valued their friendship greatly, I was not in love with them and had done nothing to warrant anyone in thinking I was, the “kiss incident” notwithstanding. It seemed very hard lines that I should go in peril of my life and get into general hot water through trying, by means of a harmless joke, to bring a bashful or undecided lover “up to the scratch.” Needless to say, I was very much worried by the turn things were taking, and for several days I got very little sleep. One night, while tossing wakefully upon my bed, I seemed to feel some danger in the air, so much so that I got up and lit the lamp to get rid of the feeling of depression which seemed to overwhelm me. Lying down again, I fell into a light slumber. Presently I was awakened by something touching me upon the shoulder. Opening my eyes, I saw right above me, with his head and one shoulder through the window, the same old Indian who had previously visited me. He was trying to slip a noose over my head by means of a long stick, but the instant I opened my eyes he disappeared. A moment later the noose slipped over the bed-post, dragging the entire end out bodily and jerking it against the wall. There followed a snort and a grunt outside, and the sound of a horse dashing off. Next morning revealed a broken saddle to which the rope had been tied, it evidently being the intention to jerk me through the window--which stood eleven feet from the ground--thus breaking my neck most effectually. In spite of this little interlude, the night’s adventures were not yet over by any means, and I had scarcely got over this first shock when a bundle was flung through the window, landing upon the mattress by my side. Shoving it hurriedly off on to the floor, I found it contained a hissing and squirming mass of snakes, and soon the room was filled with a score or so of the vipers usually known in the medical world as “corals”--the only really deadly reptiles in that part of the country, their bite being often known to kill in thirty minutes. As I slept some distance from anyone else I did not care to arouse the household in the middle of the night, so I spent the remaining hours perched upon a bookcase, out of reach of harm. It is needless to say that before the slaying of the reptiles was over next morning the commotion upon the “finca” was at fever-heat and no work was done at all, the labourers being dispatched in different directions in a vain effort to find either of the two revengeful youths.