Some have imagined that if at that moment the cavalry of the Guard, which was still in reserve, had followed this first charge by a second, Ney might have effected his object and broken Wellington's line. It is extremely doubtful, the numbers were so wholly out of proportion to such a task. At any rate, the order for the second charge, when it came, came somewhat late. The five hundred as they reined up on the summit of the hill were met and broken by a furious cross-fire from the Namur road upon the right, from the head of Bossu Wood upon the left, while yet another unit, come up in this long succession to reinforce the defence--a battery of the King's German Legion--opened upon them with grape. The poor remnant of Kellerman's Horse turned and galloped back in confusion. The second cavalry charge attempted by the French reserve, coming just too late, necessarily failed, and at the same moment yet another reinforcement--the first British division of the Guards, and a body of Nassauers, with a number of guns--came up to increase the now overwhelming superiority of Wellington's line.[10] There was even an attempt at advance upon the part of Wellington. As the evening turned to sunset, and the sunset to night, that advance was made very slowly and with increasing difficulty--and all the while Ney's embarrassed force, now confronted by something like double its own numbers, and contesting the ground yard by yard as it yielded, received no word of Erlon. The clearing of the Wood of Bossu by the right wing of Wellington's army, reinforced by the newly arrived Guards, took more than an hour. It took as long to push the French centre back to Gemioncourt, and all through the last of the sunlight the walls of the farm were desperately held. On the left, Pierrepont was similarly held for close upon an hour. The sun had already set when the Guards debouched from the Wood of Bossu, only to be met and checked by a violent artillery fire from Pierrepont, while at the same time the remnant of the cuirassiers charged again, and broke a Belgian battalion at the edge of the wood. By nine o'clock it was dark and the action ceased. Just as it ceased, and while, in the last glimmerings of the light, the major objects of the landscape, groups of wood and distant villages, could still be faintly distinguished against the background of the gloom, one such object seemed slowly to approach and move. It was first guessed and then perceived to be a body of men: the head of a column began to debouch from Frasnes. It was Erlon and his 20,000 returned an hour too late.