The duke is responsible for Jim’s recapture. He plotted to sell Jim from the beginning, when he printed up the handbill identifying Jim as a runaway slave. To collect his money, all the duke has to do is show the handbill and tell someone where Jim is hiding. As a boy tells Huck, the duke “sold out his chance in him for forty dollars, becuz he’s got to go up the river and can’t wait.”
