The king and the duke curse Huck, the town, and each other for the botched escapade, and each blames the other for hiding the money in the coffin. The duke nearly kills the king before the king falsely owns up to the crime. Soon after, they get drunk and declare renewed fealty to one another. When they pass out, Huck catches Jim up on the whole story.

The group travels south for days. They try and fail at a variety of schemes in the southern villages, and soon the party is out of money. Huck becomes nervous as the scoundrels begin to plot in secret, and so Jim and Huck make their own plot to escape. However, after a set of distractions in a town called Pikesville, Huck returns to the raft to find that Jim is missing. Down the road, he learns that Jim was caught as a runaway fitting the description of the duke’s false handbill, was sold for $40, and is now being held in the barn of a man two miles downriver named Phelps.

Huck wrestles darkly with his soul and the right thing to do. He considers writing Miss Watson with the complete story to save Jim from slavery among strangers far from the North.