One or two of Rawlinson’s suppositions about the officer were correct, but most were mistaken. He was not a Muslim, nor was he a Russian, nor was he ADC to the Governor of the Russian frontier post of Orenburg, nor was his name at birth either Beekavitch or Vitkevitch. Instead the officer was in fact a Roman Catholic Polish nobleman born Jan Prosper Witkiewicz in Vilnius, today the capital of Lithuania.
