The keen edge sank home.

What, in that flash of instant when his brain was severed from the rest of his body, Borckman may have felt or thought, if he felt or thought at all, is a mystery unsolvable to living man.

No man, his spinal cord so severed, has ever given one word or whisper of testimony as to what were his sensations and impressions.
No less swift than the hatchet stroke was the limp placidity into which Borckman's body melted to the deck.

He did not reel or pitch.

He _melted_, as a sack of wind suddenly emptied, as a bladder of air suddenly punctured.