Meanings of portentous silence in English

Then, in portentous silence he paused till everybody everywhere was seated.

Selingman sat for several moments in portentous silence.

At length the portentous silence was broken and a voice spoke, the voice of Nam the priest.

Not one word interrupted the portentous silence.

There was a moment of portentous silence; then, "Let us pray," said the minister from the pulpit.

Following a short, portentous silence:

There was a portentous silence.

It was a strange sight, that sea of heads all around us heaving in portentous silence at the slightest incident.

When Miss Mehitable came back, however, half buried under the mountain of bedding, she was greeted by a portentous silence.

Again the portentous silence and then-wasit fancy, or were there shapes, stealthy, elusive, shadowy, moving along the wall of the intense blackness?

Then we had leisure to notice that the storm cloud was mounting in a portentous silence to the zenith, quenching the brilliant desert stars.

In the midst of a portentous silence, the consul unrolled his papers, evidently intending to produce an effect by the exceeding bigness of his looks.

About the glade ranged the tall spruce, Watching breathlessly; and for a termless second or two a profound and portentous silence descended on the camp.