A large ship carrying slaves has ended up in distress. Sailor Ben Brace has managed to build a small raft – and together with a young boy called William they are trying to survive in the harsh conditions at sea. Will they make it to shore? Or will they die because of the lack of drinking water and food? ‘The Ocean Waifs: A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea’ is an exciting adventure novel written by Mayne Reid. Mayne Reid (1818–1883) was an Irish writer, who spent many years in the United States. He is best known for his adventure novels such as ‘The White Chief’ and ‘The Headless Horseman’. Many of his novels take place in the US; Reid is regarded as one of the first writers to write about the Wild West.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

"The Ocean Waifs" is a seaside adventure novel by the famed author, Mayne Reid. The story of the Pandora has been told in all its terrible details. A slave-ship, fitted out in England, and sailing from an English port,—alas! Not the only one by scores,—manned by a crew of ruffians, scarce two of them owning to the same nationality. Such was the bark Pandora. On a voyage from the coast of Guineau, with a full cargo of slaves, she had caught fire. The crew hastily fashioned a raft and rowed away to safety. But when their food supply ran out, they considered the unthinkable, to eat the young lad in their crew. But a daring plan, to rescue the lad, by the sailor Ben Brace leads to the two of them being separated from the rest of the crew and fleeing for dear life on the open sea. And then their real adventure begins...

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Golden Ballast" by Henry De Vere Stacpoole. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

Victor Jones, of Philadelphia gets into a finance trouble in London, having his business broke and owing money to the hotel he stays in. Being desperate and clueless of what to do next, he suddenly meets his lookalike in a crowded hotel lounge. He lets a new acquaintance to liquor him up, next morning finds himself in a posh hotel room, with servants who call him Earl Rochester. Next, he finds out his lookalike has committed a suicide and decides to continue the rich under the name of Rochester. He gets into numerous troubles left behind Rochester's turbulent life and being an honest man tries to bring them all to an order. But suddenly, he meets a woman, that is Rochester's wife and unexpectedly falls in love with her.