The Gold-Bug is a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe, published in 1843.
The narrator, who is a longtime friend of William Legrand, is called upon by the servant Jupiter for help: William has been fixated on an unusual gold-colored bug he discovered, and has become obsessed with the belief the bug will help him restore his lost fortune. Accompanying Legrand on an expedition to an island, the three men go on a hunt for clues to the secret tied to the mysterious bug.
The Gold-Bug decrypts the following examples:
- Funetik Aksent: Jupiter's "Negro dialect" is written this way, with a little bit of African Speekee Engrish and Buffy Speak as well.
- Leave No Witnesses: The narrator and his fellow treasure hunters succeed in finding the treasure of Captain Kidd. They dig up two human skeletons immediately above the treasure chest, and infer that the dead men were Kidd's companions who helped him bury the chest, and that Kidd murdered them so he would be the only one to know the location of the treasure.
- Pirate Booty: The story involves three men - one of them recently bitten by a golden scarab - going off on a treasure hunt for Captain Kidd's buried loot.
- Treasure Map: The encrypted message that leads to Captain Kidd's buried gold in "The Gold-Bug" is essentially a treasure map.
