But in this posture he fared worse than ever.

If he ran less risk of being blown over, he stood a much greater chance of being washed off, or stifled.

As he lay on his back, he fancied himself gradually slipping off the platform.

Springing to his feet in an ecstasy of terror, he stumbled, and had well nigh realized his worst apprehensions.
He, next, tried to clamber up the flying buttresses and soffits of the pier, in the hope of reaching some of the windows and other apertures with which, as a man-of-war is studded with port-holes, the sides of the bridge were pierced.

But this wild scheme was speedily abandoned; and, nerved by despair, the carpenter resolved to hazard an attempt, from the execution, almost from the contemplation, of which he had hitherto shrunk.