The Gold Bug

"The Gold Bug" is a short story by one of the masters of the genre, Edgar Allan Poe.

Note: Wikipedia Contains Spoilers

The Gold Bug is a story of a strange man who seemingly goes mad after finding and being bitten by a bug thought to be made of pure gold. He notifies his closest friend, the narrator, telling him to immediately come visit where he lives and then notifies the narrator upon arrival that they are embarking upon a search for lost treasure. After much doubt on behalf of the narrator, the once-seemingly insane man does find a treasure, burried by the infamous pirate "The Kidd," that is estimated by the narrator to be worth in the viscinity of fourteen million dollars. Once the treasure is in safety, the man goes into an elaborate explanation of how he knew about the treasure's location, based on a set of unexplainable occurrences that happened after the discovery of the gold bug.