Under the code his case is unassailable. Even by their own charter the friars cannot own land. The judges know that this is so, but one of their number loses his place for giving a decision in favor of a native; the rest have no desire to share his fate and so to go back to Spain humiliated as well as impoverished. They advise Tales to surrender and pay what is demanded of him. The fighting blood of the Malay is up within him: he stands in his place and demands that the friars produce some evidence of ownership—title-deeds, documents, papers, anything. None of these have the friars to show; their claim here, as so often in such cases, rests upon the tradition of a concession. Nowhere else would such a plea, unsupported and unwitnessed, be seriously considered in a court of justice. In the Philippines it outweighs everything else, and the judges decide in favor of the friars. Tales with his gun continues to patrol his land. The friars obtain a decree from the governor-general ordering all arms to be surrendered, and so they take away the shot-gun. Tales patrols his fields with a bolo. The bolo is taken from him on the pretext that it is too long and therefore comes within the prohibition of the decree about arms. Tales patrols his fields with an ax. Then the tulisanes come and capture him and hold him for five hundred pesos ransom. To get the money, Juli sells herself into slavery in the neighboring town. It is not called by that name, her servitude; but that is what it amounts to. She is engaged to a young man whom she dearly loves. The sale of herself is likely to end her chance of marriage. With the money so raised, her father is ransomed. He comes home to find the friars’ agent and the new tenant walking over the fields that with so much labor the Tales family has cleared. Tales steals a revolver and joins the tulisanes. That night the friars’ agent and the new tenant and the new tenant’s wife are murdered. [150] The substance of this story, as you perceive, is taken from the experiences of the tenants of Calamba, among them Rizal’s own folk. There is terrible irony in a description of how the governor-general governs; how he transacts business and promotes the welfare of the Islands. He has been on a hunting expedition in which he has shot nothing and returns ill tempered to Los Baños, where he has his bath, drinks his cocoanut milk, and sits down to a game of cards with three friars. From this reasonable occupation his chief secretary tries to divert his attention to matters of public business. This annoys the governor-general. “The petition about sporting arms,” suggests the secretary. “Forbidden!” says the governor-general and goes on playing. The secretary tries to intimate that this is not wise. He only arouses the wrath of the executive.