"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.