CHAPTER II.
THE BREEZE.
The spectacle on deck was appalling, and the sounds were appalling also.
The blast rushed by with a deep ground note which rose in pitch to a yell as the gust hurled itself through the cordage; each sea that came down seemed likely to be the last, but the sturdy yacht--no floating chisel was she--ran up the steep with a long, slow glide, and smashed into the black hollow with a sharp explosive sound.

Marion Dearsley might have been pardoned had she shown tremors as the flying mountains towered over the vessel.

Once a great black wall heaved up and doubled the intensity of the murky midnight by a sinister shade; there came a horrible silence, and then, with a loud bellow, the wall burst into ruin and crashed down on the ship in a torrent which seemed made up of a thousand conflicting streams.

The skipper silently dashed aft, flung his arms round Tom Lennard, and pinned him to the mast; Mr.Blair hung on, though he was drifted aft with his feet off the deck until he hung like a totally new description of flying signal; the ladies were drenched by the deluge which rushed down below, and the steward, when he saw the water swashing about over his cabin floor, exclaimed with discreet bitterness on the folly of inviting ladies to witness such a spectacle as a North Sea gale.
Tom observed: "The grandeur is--ah! fahscinating, but it's rather damp grandeur.

It's only grandeur fit for heroes.