Many years ago, I became friends with William Legrand. He had once been wealthy, but misfortune had taken his money away. To escape the shame of his losses, he left New Orleans and built a small hut on Sullivan's Island, near Charleston, South Carolina.

Legrand was intelligent and interesting, but he also had moods of excitement and sadness. He loved collecting shells and insects. With him lived Jupiter, a man who had once been enslaved by Legrand's family. After gaining his freedom, Jupiter chose to stay with Legrand. Legrand's relatives may also have wanted someone to watch over him.

One cool October evening, I visited Legrand after not seeing him for several weeks. He was excited about a beetle he had found. It was golden and shiny, with black spots. Jupiter insisted that it was made of solid gold. Legrand laughed, but he admitted that the beetle was unusually heavy.

He wanted to show me a drawing of it. He had no paper, so he used a dirty scrap he found in his pocket. When I looked at the drawing, I saw something that looked more like a skull than a beetle. Legrand was annoyed. He said he had drawn the beetle's antennae, but I could not see them.

Then his dog, Wolf, rushed in and jumped on me. While I was busy with the dog, I held the scrap near the fire. When I handed it back, Legrand suddenly looked very different. He stared at the paper, turned pale, then red. He examined it closely, put it away carefully, and became quiet and thoughtful.

I left him that evening, wondering what had changed.

A month later, Jupiter came to see me in Charleston. He was worried about Legrand. His master was not complaining of illness, but he looked pale, walked with his head down, and spent hours studying strange figures. Jupiter had even prepared a stick to punish him for slipping away alone one day. He had not used it.

Jupiter gave me a note from Legrand. It asked me to come at once. He said he had something important to tell me.

I became worried that Legrand's troubles had affected his mind. I went with Jupiter to the island. In the boat were a scythe and three spades. Jupiter had bought them for Legrand, but he did not know what they were for.

Legrand met us eagerly. He looked pale and excited. He had recovered the beetle from a friend and kept it in a glass case. It was beautiful, and I could understand why Jupiter thought it was gold.

Legrand said the beetle would make his fortune. He wanted my help on an expedition into the hills. I refused to take part in anything connected with a beetle. He said he and Jupiter would go without me. I asked him to promise that, when the expedition was over, he would follow my advice about his health. He promised.

We set out with the dog. Jupiter carried the tools. I carried lanterns. Legrand carried the beetle on a string, swinging it as he walked. I thought he was behaving strangely, but I did not want to upset him. He would not explain what we were going to do.

We crossed to the mainland and walked for about two hours. The land became wilder, with rocks, trees, and deep ravines. Jupiter used the scythe to clear a path through brambles. At last we reached a very tall tulip tree.

Legrand asked Jupiter to climb it. Jupiter was reluctant to carry the beetle, but Legrand insisted. Jupiter took it by the string and climbed. Legrand told him to count the branches and go to the seventh one on a certain side. Then he told him to move out along that branch.

The branch was dead. Jupiter was afraid to go far, but Legrand urged him on. At last Jupiter called out that he had found a skull nailed to the branch.

Legrand asked him to drop the beetle through the skull's left eye. Jupiter did so. The beetle hung below, shining in the last light.

Legrand cleared a space beneath it and drove a peg into the ground where it fell. Then he measured a line from the tree through the peg and extended it fifty feet. He marked another spot and drew a circle around it. We began to dig.

I was tired and unhappy. I thought we were searching for treasure that did not exist. But I could not leave without Legrand, and I did not think Jupiter would help me force him home. So I dug too.

The dog barked so loudly that we feared someone might hear. Jupiter tied its mouth with a suspender. We dug for two hours and found nothing. Legrand was bitterly disappointed. We began to go home.

Then he suddenly stopped and questioned Jupiter about left and right. Jupiter had been using his right hand to chop wood. When Legrand asked which eye was his left, Jupiter pointed to his right eye. He had dropped the beetle through the wrong eye.

Legrand was delighted. We returned to the tree. He moved the first peg a little way west. Then he measured the line again and marked a new place to dig.

This time I became interested. I dug eagerly, almost hoping to find something. After a while, the dog began to howl. It broke free and tore at the earth. It uncovered bones. We found two skeletons, buttons, and some coins.

Then my foot caught on an iron ring. We dug faster and uncovered a large wooden chest bound with iron. It was too heavy to lift whole. We opened it and saw gold and jewels shining in the lantern light.

We removed two thirds of the treasure and left the dog to guard the rest. We carried the chest to the hut. Later, after resting and eating, we returned with sacks for the remainder. By dawn we had brought everything home.

We spent a long time examining the treasure. There were more than four hundred and fifty thousand dollars in gold coins, along with diamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires, an opal, gold ornaments, and many watches. We estimated the whole at a million and a half dollars. Later, when we sold some of the jewels and ornaments, we found that we had underestimated its value.

At last I asked Legrand to explain.

He reminded me of the night when I had seen his drawing. He had been about to throw the scrap away when he noticed a skull on it. He remembered that the skull had not been there when he drew the beetle.

He examined the scrap more closely. It was parchment, not paper. On the other side was his own drawing. He remembered that he had checked both sides before drawing. The skull had appeared afterward.

He thought about how the parchment had come to him. He and Jupiter had found the beetle near the remains of an old boat on the mainland. Jupiter had wrapped the beetle in the parchment. Later, Legrand had lent the beetle to a friend but kept the parchment.

The skull made him think of pirates. He also noticed a figure that looked like a kid, or young goat. He thought it might be a playful signature for Captain Kidd, the famous pirate.

He remembered stories about treasure buried by Kidd and his companions. If the treasure had been recovered, the stories might have died away. Instead, people still spoke of searching for it. Legrand thought the secret of its location might have been lost.

He heated the parchment again. More writing appeared. It was a message in strange symbols.

He began by counting the symbols. The most common one appeared thirty-three times. In English, the letter e is usually the most common. He guessed that this symbol meant e.

Then he looked for repeated groups. The group ;48 appeared often. If 8 meant e, the group might mean the. That gave him t, h, and e.

From there he found other words. The letters he knew helped him discover more. Gradually he read the message:

"A good glass in the Bishop's hostel in the Devil's seat, twenty-one degrees and thirteen minutes, northeast and by north, main branch seventh limb east side, shoot from the left eye of the death's-head, a bee-line from the tree through the shot fifty feet out."

The words were still puzzling. Legrand separated them into parts. He looked for a place called the Bishop's Hotel. He found none. Then he thought of a family named Bessop. An old woman told him about Bessop's Castle. It was not a castle or a hotel, but a high rock.

On the rock he found a narrow ledge. It was just wide enough for a person to sit in one position. He thought this was the Devil's seat.

"A good glass" meant a telescope. The directions told him where to point it. From the ledge, he looked northeast and upward. Through a circular opening in the leaves of a distant tree, he saw a white object. With the telescope focused, he saw that it was a skull.

The message told him to drop something through the skull's left eye. A straight line from the tree through the place where it fell, extended fifty feet, would mark the spot to dig.

He had carefully noted the tree's position. Then he returned home. The next morning he slipped away to find the tree. Jupiter had been worried and angry when he returned.

I asked why he had used the beetle instead of a bullet. He admitted that he had wanted to tease me. I had suspected he was mad, and he had decided to surprise me. He also thought the skull's whiteness made it easier to see from the ledge.

I asked about the skeletons. Legrand could not answer with certainty. He suggested that Kidd may have had help burying the treasure and may have killed the people who knew about it. That was only a guess.

Legrand had not been ill. He had been excited by a puzzle that he was solving. I had been wrong to think he was mad. His careful work had led us to the treasure.