CHAPTER XVI.

THE COLUMBIAD.

Had the operation of casting succeeded?  People were reduced to mere conjecture.  However, there was every reason to believe in its success, as the mould had absorbed the entire mass of metal liquefied in the furnaces.  Still it was necessarily a long time impossible to be certain.

In fact, when Major Rodman cast his cannon of 160,000 lbs., it took no less than a fortnight to cool.  How long, therefore, would the monstrous Columbiad, crowned with its clouds of vapour, and guarded by its intense heat, be kept from the eyes of its admirers?  It was difficult to estimate.

The impatience of the members of the Gun Club was put to a rude test during this lapse of time.  But it could not be helped.  J.T.  Maston was nearly roasted through his anxiety.  A fortnight after the casting an immense column of smoke was still soaring towards the sky, and the ground burnt the soles of the feet within a radius of 200 feet round the summit of Stony Hill.

The days went by; weeks followed them.  There were no means of cooling the immense cylinder.  It was impossible to approach it.  The members of the Gun Club were obliged to wait with what patience they could muster.

“Here we are at the 10th of August,” said J.T.  Maston one morning.  “It wants hardly four months to the 1st of December!  There still remains the interior mould to be taken out, and the Columbiad to be loaded!  We never shall be ready!  One cannot even approach the cannon!  Will it never get cool?  That would be a cruel deception!”

They tried to calm the impatient secretary without succeeding.  Barbicane said nothing, but his silence covered serious irritation.  To see himself stopped by an obstacle that time alone could remove—­time, an enemy to be feared under the circumstances—­and to be in the power of an enemy was hard for men of war.

However, daily observations showed a certain change in the state of the ground.  Towards the 15th of August the vapour thrown off had notably diminished in intensity and thickness.  A few days after the earth only exhaled a slight puff of smoke, the last breath of the monster shut up in its stone tomb.  By degrees the vibrations of the ground ceased, and the circle of heat contracted; the most impatient of the spectators approached; one day they gained ten feet, the next twenty, and on the 22nd of August Barbicane, his colleagues, and the engineer could take their place on the cast-iron surface which covered the summit of Stony Hill, certainly a very healthy spot, where it was not yet allowed to have cold feet.

“At last!” cried the president of the Gun Club with an immense sigh of satisfaction.