CHAPTER XXXI

As the raft drifts south into warmer country, the king and duke feel safer and resume scams—temperance lectures, dancing school, elocution, and more—but fail repeatedly and grow desperate. They hide the raft near Pikesville. The king goes to town and gets drunk; while the king and duke quarrel, Huck runs to free himself and Jim.

Huck reaches the raft and discovers Jim is gone. A local boy says a runaway has been caught at Silas Phelps’s place, sold there by a stranger for forty dollars. Crushed, Huck agonizes over his role in Jim’s flight and fears divine punishment. He resolves to write Miss Watson to reveal Jim’s location but realizes she might sell Jim again, and Huck would bear lasting shame.

Huck tries to pray but cannot; he knows he is lying to himself. He writes the letter and briefly feels clean, then recalls Jim’s loyalty and kindness throughout their journey. Confronted with the letter, Huck decides between accepted morality and fidelity to Jim. He tears the letter, declaring, “All right, then, I’ll go to hell,” and commits to stealing Jim out of slavery.

Huck forms a rescue plan: he moves the raft to a nearby island, rests, then goes ashore near Phelps’s, caches supplies, and sinks his canoe for later use. In town he encounters the duke advertising the Royal Nonesuch. Huck pretends ignorance and invents a story about losing the raft. The duke reveals the king sold Jim and, mistrusting Huck, falsely directs him to a distant buyer, Abram G. Foster.

Playing along to avoid suspicion, Huck appears to set out immediately but doubles back through the woods toward Silas Phelps’s farm. He aims to silence any risk of exposure from Jim and to free him before the con men can interfere or flee.