14 Huck’s Confession

CHAPTER 14 Huck's Confession The king and the duke woke me up early the next morning. I could tell from their faces that there was trouble. "Were you in my room last night or the night before?" the king asked. "No, your majesty," I said. "Have you seen anybody else go in there?" the duke asked. I pretended to think for a while and then I told

them I'd seen some of the slaves go into the king's room a few times. Both of them gave a little jump and looked like they had never expected that. Then their expressions changed and they looked like they had expected the slaves to take the money. "Great guns, this is a go!" the king said. Both of them looked pretty sick and silly. They stood there thinking and scratching their heads for a minute. Then the duke burst into a kind of raspy little chuckle. They talked about how smart those slaves were. I asked if anything was wrong. Well they got very mad at me for asking that and for not telling them I'd seen the slaves going into the king's room. The slaves had left the house the day before when news had spread that the men were going to auction off all the property. I knew the two men didn't want to tell me the money was gone. They didn't think I knew they had the money in the first place! They didn't

think I knew any of their plans to rob the girls. The next day I saw Mary Jane crying. When I went to talk to her, she told me that she was upset about leaving her home. She said she was excited to be going to England soon, but it made her sad to leave her home. Well, seeing her cry like that and seeing that she believed those two frauds were really her uncles, I just couldn't keep lying to her. "I've got to tell the truth," I said. "You'll want to brace up, Miss Mary, because it's a bad kind. It's going to be hard to take, but there's no help for it. These uncles of yours aren't uncles at all. They're a couple of frauds—regular dead-beats." It surprised her, of course, but I was over the worst of it now so I went right along and told her every last detail. I described everything that had happened from the time we met that young fool on the steamboat clear through to when she hugged and kissed the king the day she met him. Then, with her face red like sunset, she stood

and said: "The brute! Come, don't waste a minute—not a second. We'll have them tarred and feathered and flung in the river!" "Well," I said, "it's a rough gang, those two frauds. And I've got to travel with them a while longer, whether I want to or not. I'd rather not tell you why. If you were to tell on them, this town would get me out of their claws. I'd be all right, but there'd be another person that you don't know about who'd be in big trouble. Well, we've got to save him, don't we? Of course. Well, then, we can't tell on them yet." Talking to her, I had an idea of how I could lose those two frauds. I asked Mary Jane to stay at her friend's house, which was a few miles away, while I worked on my plan. Then she was to come back here. If I wasn't back by eleven o'clock, she was to tell everyone the truth about the king and the duke. After Mary Jane left, I went outside to where

the auction was being held in the public square. It was late in the afternoon and it took a long time to sell everything. The king kept giving speeches and interrupting the auctioneer while the duke pretended to talk with sign language. Eventually they sold everything. Just as the auction was ending, a crowd came up from the steamboat dock. They were yelling, laughing, and carrying-on. "Here's another set of heirs to old Peter Wilks' fortune!" they yelled. "Two more brothers!" The crowd was walking with an older gentleman and a nice looking younger one. My souls, how the people yelled and laughed. I didn't see any joke about it. I thought surely the king and the duke would get upset. But no, they just looked at the newcomers. The king had a sad look on his face, as if it made him sick to think there could be such frauds in the world. The nice old gentleman looked confused. When he spoke,

I knew right away that he had a real English accent. It was nothing like the king's fake accent. There were a lot of arguments then. The newcomers said they were the real Harvey and William Wilks. They had been held up in their journey here and now they had to prove that they were telling the truth. The old doctor said he knew that the king and the duke were lying. He demanded that the six thousand dollars be returned. The king told him that the money was stolen by the slaves, who had since left town. At first the town seemed divided between those who believed the king and the duke really were the Wilks brothers and those who believed in the newcomers. But as they listened to the real brothers, more people started to realize who was telling the truth and who was lying. The king put on a good show, though. He answered every question so well that it was hard to prove he was lying. Finally the old gentleman asked the king to