### 279

Once again your quick wits and instinct for survival have saved you from death. The Giak search party rush forward and surround the boulder where you were spotted, only to find it deserted. In frustration at having let you slip through their fingers, they overturn every rock in the vicinity, cursing and stabbing at anything that moves: they succeed in killing three crabs and a sea-snake! By the time they realize that you have escaped, it is too late for them to catch up; you are over a mile away, running northwards along the beach.

Turn to 157.