A few large drops of water fell.

The gust was violent; the sails filled with it and struggled like kites to be free; here and there a strand of rope snapped; the masts bent and creaked; the booms jumped and swung round like live things; the whole ship from bowsprit to rudder shook and trembled with the assault.
Cleggett, watchful at the wheel, prepared to turn her nose away from the bank, but he was astonished to perceive that in spite of her quaking and shivering the Jasper B.did not move one inch forward from her position.

He was prepared for a certain stability on the part of the Jasper B., but not for quite so much of it.
With the next gust the storm was on them in earnest.

This blast came with zigzag flashes of lightning that showed the heavens riotous with battalions of charging clouds; it came with deafening thunder and a torrential discharge of rain.

One would have thought the power of the wind sufficient to set a steel battleship scudding before it like a wooden shoe.