28 MUEDER OF JOHN NORTON. 
master, run up the beach, for the purpose of 
releasing the boat. This brave man fell a 
sacrifice, in preserving the lives of his compa- 
nions. He was surrounded by the natives, 
who barbarously murdered him, and after- 
wards beat him about the head with stones. 
Poor Norton was a man of worthy character, 
who supported an aged parent out of his 
wages. They killed him on the beach, and 
dragged the body up the country to one of 
their matais, or lawns, and there left it exposed 
for two or three days before they buried it. 
This story was related by the islanders to Mr. 
William Mariner, when he visited Tofoa, 
eighteen years afterwards ; and they added, 
that no grass had since grown on the line 
along which they had dragged the corpse, 
nor upon the spot where it had lain unburied. 
Such a tale induced him to make further 
examination; and he found a bare line, as 
they had stated, in a place where it would 
seem there was no frequency of passers by ; 
and at the termination of the track, a bare 
spot, .extending transversely, about the length 
and breadth of a man. 
This anecdote is found in Mariner's Account 
