He told me afterward that he had fired in the air.
"Noise is as good as knock-outs in the dark," he explained, while Anazeh's men boasted to one another of the straight shooting that it may be they really believed they had done.

An Arab can believe anything--afterward.

I don't believe one man was killed, though several were hit.
At any rate, whether the noise accomplished it or not, the pursuers drew off, and we went forward, carrying a cashbox now, of which Abdul Ali was politely requested to produce the key.
That was the first intimation he had that his house had been looted.

He threw his bunch of keys away into the shadows, in the first exhibition of real weakness he had shown that night.

It was a silly gesture.