The thunder was bellowing, and the lightning lancing out of a huge black cloud which lay above it and hung down its edges of thick mist over its sides.

The lightning was breaking out of the mountain, too, and flashing up into the cloud.

From the state of the brooks, now swollen into raging torrents, it was evident that the storm had been storming all day.
The wind was blowing as if it would blow him off the mountain, but, anxious about his mother and the princess, Curdie darted up through the thick of the tempest.

Even if they had not set out before the storm came on, he did not judge them safe, for in such a storm even their poor little house was in danger.

Indeed he soon found that but for a huge rock against which it was built, and which protected it both from the blasts and the waters, it must have been swept if it was not blown away; for the two torrents into which this rock parted the rush of water behind it united again in front of the cottage--two roaring and dangerous streams, which his mother and the princess could not possibly have passed.