Stoutly as the eight thousand British had fought--deserted though they were by their allies--against Ney's overpowering numbers, they could not much longer have stood their ground, when at the critical moment General Alten's division came up by the Nivelles road to their aid. Halket's British brigade advanced between the wood of Bossu and the Charleroi road; while the Hanoverian brigade took up ground to the left, and gave their support to the hardly-pressed British. Ney now pushed forward every man at his disposal. His masses of cavalry charged down, and falling upon the Sixty-ninth, one of the regiments just arrived, cut it up terribly, and carried off one of its colors. The Thirty-second, however, belonging to the same brigade, repulsed a similar attempt with terrible slaughter. The French infantry, supported by a column of cuirassiers, advanced against the Hanoverians, and driving them back approached the spot where the Ninety-second were lying. Major-General Barnes rode up to the Highlanders taking off his hat, and shouted: "Now, Ninety-second, follow me!" The Highlanders sprang from the ditch in which they were lying, the bagpipes struck up the slogan of the regiment, and with leveled bayonets they threw themselves upon the French column. In vain its leading companies attempted to make a stand. The Highlanders drove them back in confusion, and they broke and fled to the shelter of the hedgerows, where they tried to resist the advance, but the Highlanders burst through without a pause. Their colonel, John Cameron, fell dead; but his men, more furious than before, flung themselves on the French, and drove them back in confusion into the wood. Ney still thought of renewing the attack; but D'Erlon's corps had not yet arrived, while at this moment two light battalions of Brunswickers, with two batteries of artillery, came up, and almost immediately afterward General Cooke's division, comprising two brigades of the guards, reached the spot. The latter at once advanced against the French skirmishers, just as they were issuing afresh from the wood of Bossu. The guards had undergone a tremendous march; but all thought of fatigue was lost in their excitement, and they swept the French before them and pressed forward. As they did so the whole British line advanced, Halket's brigade on the one flank the guards on the other. In vain the French cavalry charged again and again. In vain the French infantry strove to stem the tide. One after another the positions they had so hardly won were wrested from them. Picton's division retook the village; Piermont was carried by the Ninety-fifth and the German legion; while the guards drove the enemy entirely out of the wood of Bossu. Night was now falling, and Ney fell back under cover of darkness to his original position in Frasnes; while the British lighted their fires, and bivouacked on the ground they had so bravely held.