fully does nature preserve the equilibrium
throughout the world. What more fitting than that the day should be
buried by the hands of one whose life is as spotless as the snow upon
the peaks of the Sierras we have left behind us?"

All now uncovered their heads--that is, the gentlemen did--and the
captain advanced, leading Inez Hawthorne by the hand. Holding her up a
short distance from the deck, she called out:

"Good-by, Twenty-first of September!"

She repeated the words correctly, for the captain whispered them in
her ear, and as she spoke she gave the parcel a slight shove, and
overboard it went, striking the water with a splash, and instantly
sinking out of sight. The package was nothing but some old iron,
wrapped about with coarse brown paper.

The ceremony of burying a day, as the reader knows, is a common, and
it may be said, a necessary, one with vessels sailing westward over
the Pacific, as the picking up of a day is necessary on the return. At
first sight it seems incongruous, but it is in fact the only way in
which the reckoning of time can be kept correctly.

The little ceremony naturally caused the matter itself to become one
of discussion, and probably a goodly number of young ladies and
gentlemen picked up more knowledge of the matter than they had ever
dreamed of before.

Two curious things happened within a half hour of this novel
ceremony.

The _Polynesia_ was driving along with that steady motion in which the
throbbing of the vessel can only be detected by carefully standing
still and watching for it, when every passenger, and especially the
captain and his officers, suddenly felt an alarming jar, which shook
the steamer from stem to stern. It was noticed that the engine
instantly stopped and the enormous ship gradually came to rest upon
the long, heaving swell of the Pacific.

In a few minutes it was ascertained that the steamer had broken the
shaft of her propeller, thus rendering the all-important screw
useless. This necessitated the hoisting of her sails, and a monotonous
voyage to her destination, a return to San Francisco, or a long
deviation to Honolulu for repairs.

While the necessary investigation was going on, a sail had been
sighted bearing down upon them, and in half an hour it came-to, a
short distance off, in the hope of being able to afford some
assistance--as the sight of a steamer lying motionless on the water
meant that something was amiss.

This new craft was the sc