death-tick

It haunts my ears, it is frightful, to say to one's self: There is clockwork somewhere, just about to reach the death-tick -- and not to know where, not to know where!

The Secret of the Night Gaston Leroux 1897

It knocks there night and day like the death-tick in the desk of Mickiewicz's poem.

Without Dogma Henryk Sienkiewicz 1881

The hearing, in the wall, of the "death-watch," or "death-tick," betokens a death in the house.

Current Superstitions Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk William Wells Newell 1873

That this mysterious hummingbird of ocean -- which, had it but brilliancy of hue, might, from its evanescent liveliness, be almost called its butterfly, yet whose chirrup under the stern is ominous to mariners as to the peasant the death-tick sounding from behind the chimney jamb -- should have its special haunt at the Encantadas, contributes, in the seaman's mind, not

The Piazza Tales Herman Melville 1855