<P> On one occasion, the swindlers advertise a three - night engagement of a play called "The Royal Nonesuch". The play turns out to be only a couple of minutes' worth of an absurd, bawdy sham . On the afternoon of the first performance, a drunk called Boggs is shot dead by a gentleman named Colonel Sherburn; a lynch mob forms to retaliate against Sherburn; and Sherburn, surrounded at his home, disperses the mob by making a defiant speech describing how true lynching should be done . By the third night of "The Royal Nonesuch", the townspeople prepare for their revenge on the duke and king for their money - making scam, but the two cleverly skip town together with Huck and Jim just before the performance begins . </P> <P> In the next town, the two swindlers then impersonate brothers of Peter Wilks, a recently deceased man of property . To match accounts of Wilks's brothers, the king attempts an English accent and the duke pretends to be a deaf - mute while starting to collect Wilks's inheritance . Huck decides that Wilks's three orphaned nieces, who treat Huck with kindness, do not deserve to be cheated thus and so he tries to retrieve for them the stolen inheritance . In a desperate moment, Huck is forced to hide the money in Wilks's coffin, which is abruptly buried the next morning . The arrival of two new men who seem to be the real brothers throws everything into confusion, so that the townspeople decide to dig up the coffin in order to determine which are the true brothers, but, with everyone else distracted, Huck leaves for the raft, hoping to never see the duke and king again . Suddenly, though, the two villains return, much to Huck's despair . When Huck is finally able to get away a second time, he finds to his horror that the swindlers have sold Jim away to a family that intends to return him to his proper owner for the reward . Defying his conscience and accepting the negative religious consequences he expects for his actions--"All right, then, I'll go to hell!"--Huck resolves to free Jim once and for all . </P> <P> Huck learns that Jim is being held at the plantation of Silas and Sally Phelps . The family's nephew, Tom, is expected for a visit at the same time as Huck's arrival, so Huck is mistaken for Tom and welcomed into their home . He plays along, hoping to find Jim's location and free him; in a surprising plot twist, it is revealed that the expected nephew is, in fact, Tom Sawyer . When Huck intercepts the real Tom Sawyer on the road and tells him everything, Tom decides to join Huck's scheme, pretending to be his own younger half - brother, Sid, while Huck continues pretending to be Tom . In the meantime, Jim has told the family about the two grifters and the new plan for "The Royal Nonesuch", and so the townspeople capture the duke and king, who are then tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail . </P> <P> Rather than simply sneaking Jim out of the shed where he is being held, Tom develops an elaborate plan to free him, involving secret messages, a hidden tunnel, snakes in a shed, a rope ladder sent in Jim's food, and other elements from adventure books he has read, including an anonymous note to the Phelps warning them of the whole scheme . During the actual escape and resulting pursuit, Tom is shot in the leg, while Jim remains by his side, risking recapture rather than completing his escape alone . Although a local doctor admires Jim's decency, he has Jim arrested in his sleep and returned to the Phelps . After this, events quickly resolve themselves . Tom's Aunt Polly arrives and reveals Huck and Tom's true identities to the Phelps family . Jim is revealed to be a free man: Miss Watson died two months earlier and freed Jim in her will, but Tom (who already knew this) chose not to reveal this information to Huck so that he could come up with an artful rescue plan for Jim . Jim tells Huck that Huck's father (Pap Finn) has been dead for some time (he was the dead man they found earlier in the floating house), and so Huck may now return safely to St. Petersburg . Huck declares that he is quite glad to be done writing his story, and despite Sally's plans to adopt and civilize him, he intends to flee west to Indian Territory . </P>

The adventures of huckleberry finn by mark twain book summary