"But where did you learn it?"
"From my great-great-great-grandfather, up near Delhi. He still dropped into an eighty-foot well when he was eighty years old."
Biff had heard of the famous well jumpers, who for centuries had performed their amazing feat of dropping straight down an eighty-foot shaft that was only eight feet wide. That dated back to when the Great Moguls had ruled India and the skill had been handed down from father to son for generations until the British government had forbidden it as too dangerous.
"But I thought they stopped well jumping—"
Biff caught himself, afraid that he would offend Chandra, but the Indian boy took it in good humor.
"You mean like they stop thugee?" laughed Chandra. "They tried, but thugs go underground so we still go under water. The big difference"—Chandra turned serious now—"was that thugs hurt other people and should be stopped, but well jumpers hurt nobody but themselves and even then, not very often."
"I guess not," agreed Biff, "or your great-great-grandfather wouldn't have been in the game at eighty."
"My great-great-great-grandfather."
"My mistake," said Biff. "So your people still kept on jumping down wells?"
"No, we obey the law," returned Chandra. "We stop. But we practice in open pools, just like other people dive. Sometimes at night, we take full moon as target. We drop a stone from a high riverbank, where the moon shows in the water. Then we step off like we three just did."