James and Huck flee the collapsing revival tent as the crowd turns on the Duke and the King. While escaping through town, Huck stops at a poster showing a Black man's face marked as a runaway with a three-hundred-dollar reward. James believes the poster is for him, and when he sees the Duke and the King studying it too, James realizes the two swindlers now have an even stronger reason to betray him. The sight sends James back to memories of whippings and lynchings, and fear drives James to run harder.

As they leave town, Huck openly says that the Duke and the King may try to turn James in for the reward, confirming James's suspicion. James guides Huck toward the sycamore that marks the path to the raft, covers their tracks with brush, and uses the heavy rain to help erase their trail. At the river, James and Huck find the raft, but the Duke has tied one side with a difficult knot. James works it loose just as angry shouting rises from the woods behind them.

When the Duke and the King call from the bank and beg to be taken aboard, Huck asks whether they should save the men. James refuses because rescuing them would likely lead to James being sold for reward money, so James pushes the raft into the current and leaves them behind. As the river carries them away, Huck worries about what the mob will do, and James says only that the swindlers brought trouble on themselves by stealing and lying. Huck then observes that the townspeople seemed eager to believe the fraud, and James answers that people keep the lies they want and discard the truths that scare them. Huck admits that he does something similar when he forgets how much James misses his family, and James thanks Huck for recognizing that pain.

Later, the rain makes daylight travel feel safer, and by dusk James and Huck strip down to dry their clothes. James tells Huck that James knew Huck's mother and that she loved Huck, even though she died when Huck was very young. When Huck asks whether his mother was pretty, James explains that slavery makes even such thoughts dangerous for an enslaved man to speak aloud about a white woman, though James can say she was kind. Their quiet talk about beauty, memory, and slavery ends when both of them see a steamboat burning across the river, with passengers leaping into the water and the whole scene unfolding like a terrible dream.