Europe and elsewhere, by Mark Twain [pseud.] [with an appreciation by Brander Matthews and an introduction by Albert Bigelow Paine]

EUROPE AND ELSEWHERE
a vast building with a lighted clock tower, and
presently entered a gateway, passed through a sort
of tunnel, and stopped in a court surrounded by the
black outlines of a great edifice. Then we alighted,
walked a dozen steps or so, and waited. In a little
while footsteps were heard and a man emerged from
the darkness and we dropped into his wake without
saying anything. He led us under an archway of
masonry, and from that into a roomy tunnel, through
a tall iron gate, which he locked behind us. We
followed him down this tunnel, guided more by his
footsteps on the stone flagging than by anything
we could very distinctly see. At the end of it we
came to another iron gate, and our conductor
stopped there and lit a little bull's-eye lantern. Then
he unlocked the gate-and I wished he had oiled it
first, it grated so dismally. The gate swung open
and we stood on the threshold of what seemed a
limitless domed and pillared cavern carved out of the
solid darkness. The conductor and my friend took off
their hats reverently, and I did likewise. For the
moment that we stood thus there was not a sound,
and the silence seemed to add to the solemnity of the
gloom. I looked my inquiry!
"It is the tomb of the great dead of EnglandWestminster Abbey."
(One cannot express a start-in words.) Down
among the columns-ever so far away, it seemeda light revealed itself like a star, and a voice came
echoing through the spacious emptiness:
"Who goes there!"
"Wright! "
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