The same evening, Huck sneaks downstairs to try and hide the bag of gold. The front door is locked, however, and when Huck hears Mary Jane coming, he is forced to hide the gold in Peter Wilks’ coffin. Because so many people are in the house, Huck does not have the opportunity to retrieve the money.
The funeral proceeds, and Huck realizes he does not know whether the gold is still in the coffin or if someone else has discovered it. After the funeral, the king announces that the estate will be sold in two days. The daughters appear to accept the sale until the king breaks up a slave family and sells them to different traders.
Mary Jane cannot bear to think of the separated family and the mother and the children never seeing one another again. Because he wants to comfort her, Huck blurts out that the slave family will see each other in the next two weeks. When Mary Jane promises to leave the house if Huck will tell her how he knows this, Huck tells the entire story of the king and the duke and how they have fooled everyone.
Mary Jane wants to tar and feather the con men immediately, but Huck reminds her of her promise and explains that “I’d be all right; but there’d be another person that you don’t know about who’d be in big trouble.” She honors her promise, and Huck gives her a note that explains where the missing gold can be found. The other daughters are confused about Mary Jane’s absence, and the confusion grows when two more men arrive claiming to be Harvey and William.
