And he rose with his own pulse quickening.
"If she doesn't die soon--she's got a chance--the barest chance to live," he said.
He wondered if the internal bleeding had ceased.

There was no more film of blood upon her lips.

But no corpse could have been whiter.

Opening her blouse, he untied the scarf, and carefully picked away the sage leaves from the wound in her shoulder.

It had closed.