How strange that there should be hidden in the convolutions of a man's brain an intelligence that laid bare the pretences of that ravenous demon without.

Each of the ship's officers, the commander more than the others, understood the why and the wherefore of this blustering combination of wind and sea.

Iris knew the language of poker.

Nature was putting up a huge bluff.
What was it the captain said in his little lecture?
"When a ship meets a cyclone north of the equator on a westerly course she nearly always has the wind at first on the port side, but, owing to the revolution of the gale, when she passes its center the wind is on the starboard side." Yes, that was right, as far as the first part was concerned.

Evidently they had not yet passed the central path.