April 24th, after they had drifted 1,385 miles, the vessel, although not by any means clear of the ice, which was dashed against it by the swell, and which often choked their screw and brought the engines to a dead stop, was out of imminent danger. Their escape had been little short of miraculous, and a sailing vessel, however strong, would probably never have so successfully braved the dangers of the pack as did the little steam-yacht _Fox_. Its commander writes feelingly on the 26th:—“At sea! How am I to describe the events of the last two days? It has pleased God to accord to us a deliverance in which His merciful protection contrasts—how strongly!—with our own utter helplessness; as if the successive mercies vouchsafed to us during our long winter and mysterious ice-drift had been concentrated and repeated in a single act. Thus forcibly does His great goodness come home to the mind!” Their troubles, anxieties, and doubts, were over, and two days later they were safely anchored off Holsteinborg, enjoying the hospitalities of the Danes. M’Clintock refers, _àpropos_ of his own experience, to a whaler, whose vessel, nipped in the ice, was lost in little less time than it takes to tell the story. “It was a beautiful morning; they had almost reached the North Water, and were anticipating a very successful voyage; the steward had just reported breakfast ready, when Captain Deuchars, seeing the floes closing together ahead of the ship, remained on deck to see her pass safely between them. But they closed too quickly; the vessel was _almost_ through when the points of ice caught her sides, abreast of the mizen-mast, and, passing through, held the wreck up for a few minutes, barely long enough for the crew to escape and save their boats! Poor Deuchars thus suddenly lost his breakfast and his ship; within _ten minutes_ her royal yards disappeared beneath the surface.” The vessel was a strong one, supposed to be exactly adapted for whaling, but the powerful nip she received was too much for her. The _Fox_, in spite of her long imprisonment, was far more fortunate. CHAPTER XXIV. THE LAST TRACES. M’Clintock’s Summer Explorations—The Second Winter—Sledging Parties—Snow Huts—Near the Magnetic Pole—Meeting with Esquimaux—Franklin Relics obtained—Objection of Esquimaux to Speak of the Dead—Hobson’s Discovery of the Franklin Records—Fate of the _Erebus_ and _Terror_—Large Quantity of Relics Purchased from the Natives—The Skeleton on the Beach—Fate of Crozier’s Party—“As they Fell they Died”—The Record at Point Victory—Boat with Human Remains Discovered—The Wrecks never Seen—Return of the _Fox_.