The Cockpit's Dark Bargain — Noli Me Tángere

Sunday cockfighting draws San Diego's poor and rich alike under government licence that taxes vice for schools and bridges, turning cruelty into civic revenue. Tarsilo and Bruno, sons of a man flogged to death by Civil Guards, lose their last coins betting while Lucas circles them like a creditor at a funeral, smelling grief that can be rented.

He offers Crisostomo's money to men willing to raid the barracks, citing their father's beating and promising thirty pesos plus recruits. The brothers hesitate over their sister, then accept after another lost wager and Lucas's lie that Ibarra leads the plot, because despair makes any banner look like justice when the cockpit has taken your food money and honour already buried with their father, yet the state will call the raid patriotism when it needs a scapegoat, and Lucas pockets the lie that will hang on Ibarra's name.

Rizal links sanctioned gambling, state profit from vice, and recruitment of desperate men into a frame-up that will blame the reformer for violence he never ordered while the cockpit cheers, the treasury counts its share, and friars wait for blood they can call rebellion, and the brothers sign their names to a plot they believe is Ibarra's.