What would such an observer have seen upon the landscape below and before him to his left? He would have seen an interminable line of men streaming northward also, all afternoon, up the Brussels road from Quatre Bras; and behind them, treading upon their heels, another column, miles in length, pressing the pursuit. The retreating column, as it hurried off, he would see screened on its rear by a mass of cavalry, that from time to time charged and checked the pursuers, and sometimes put guns in line to hold them back. The pursuers, after each such check, would still press on. The first, the thousands in retreat, were Wellington's command retiring from Quatre Bras; the second, the pursuers, were a body some 74,000 strong formed by the junction of Ney and Napoleon, and pressing forward to bring Wellington to battle. * * * * * At Quatre Bras, Wellington had not been able, as he had hoped, to join the Prussians and save them from defeat. The French, under Ney, had held him up. He would even have suffered a reverse had Ney attacked promptly and strongly earlier in the day of Friday the 16th, but Ney had not acted promptly and strongly. All day long reinforcements had come in one after the other, much later than the Duke intended, but in a sufficient measure to meet the tardy and too cautious development of Ney's attack. Finally, the real peril under which the Duke lay (though he did not know it)--the junction of Erlon and his forces with Ney--had not taken place until darkness fell, and Erlon's 20,000 had been wasted in the futile fashion which has been described and analysed. The upshot, therefore, of the whole business at Quatre Bras was, that during the night between Friday and Saturday the 16th and the 17th the English and the French lay upon their positions, neither seriously incommoding the other. During that night further reinforcements reached Wellington where his troops had bivouacked upon the positions they had held so well. Lord Uxbridge, in command of the British cavalry, and Ompteda's brigade both came up with the morning, as did also Clinton's division and Colville's division, and so did the reserve artillery. In spite of all these reinforcements, in spite even of the great mass of horse which Uxbridge had brought up, and of the new guns, Wellington's position upon that morning of Saturday the 17th of June was, though he did not yet know it, very perilous. He still believed that the Prussians were holding on to Ligny, and that they had kept their positions during the night, which night he had himself spent at Genappe, to the rear of the battlefield of Quatre Bras.[14]