The distance from Otumba to Tlaxcalla was short, and the Spaniards were not further interrupted. The returned Tlaxcallans were received at home with great honors, and in spite of the disasters of the Spaniards, they remained faithful to the stranger. Cortés reposed among them, recovering from his own wounds, and giving his companions time to rest and refresh themselves. Meanwhile, he was forming new projects and drawing closer the bond of friendship with his hosts. The wise old Maxixcatzin, his first friend and constant supporter, died at that time, but the other Tlaxcallans continued their favor. By December, only six months from his return to Tlaxcalla, Cortés had succeeded in making a new army of respectable proportion. Ixtlilxochitl now ruled undisturbed over the whole of Texcuco, after the death of his brothers, who had resisted the cause of the invaders. He was the fourteenth and last monarch of his country, of which he was the greatest enemy, fatal to it as well as to his own race and family. From the beginning a prudent ally of Cortés, after the retreat of the Spanish army to Texcuco, he sent him renewed offers of aid, and raised a large troop of soldiers for the invading army. Without them and other indigenous bands Cortés would have been badly off. Thus increased, his new army reached the reputed number of two hundred thousand men. With these he came to Texcuco, by two days' march, halting at a little village at the base of Iztaccíhuatl, the companion volcano of Popocatepetl, which, stretched like a corpse in its shroud of everlasting snow, bears the name of the White Woman. The Spanish army entered Texcuco on the last day of the year, December 31, 1520, and here was conducted to the palace of Nezahualpilli, a building spacious enough to accommodate all the Spaniards. The town, as on his first entrance at Tenochtitlan, was deserted, and Cortés learned that whole families were leaving in boats and by the mountain paths. A weaker heart might have sunk at the repetition of such intimations of dislike, but the Spanish conqueror's heart was inflexible. Ixtlilxochitl received him with all cordiality, and presented to him the body of fifty thousand men he had raised, a substantial gift, which was in itself encouraging.