Upon arrival at Minsk the Grand Duke Constantine died suddenly.
By whose hand?
No other than that of the man with the green eyes. Only that this time it was not he of the Tsatir Dagh, but he of the banks of the Ganges—cholera.
It was said, too, that he was buried—that his coffin had been lowered into the vault in the Church of Peter-Paul at St. Petersburg. But the people would not believe it.
Tradition has it that he was taken prisoner and conveyed to "Holy Island."
Not many years after there was a peasant rising, and it was rumored that their leader was Constantine. The rising was suppressed, but the leader was not captured; the people had hidden him too securely.
And to this day the belief is that Grand Duke Constantine is still alive.
The fishermen of Lapland, when at nights their boats beat about off Solowetshk Monastery, often see the figure of a tall, gray-headed man wandering about the bastions. It is attended by two armed sentinels; and ever and anon the spectre raises its clasped hands to heaven, as if in supplication.
Then they whisper to one another that the mysterious prisoner of Holy Island is none other than the vanished Constantine, though forty years have passed since his disappearance.